Mr Corr was a maintenance engineer who became severely disfigured after he was struck on the head by a machine at work. He underwent extensive reconstructive surgery but remained disfigured. He suffered from flashbacks and post traumatic stress disorder and lapsed into a deep depression from which he never recovered. Six years after the accident he committed suicide. At the time of his death, Mr Corr had begun proceedings against his former employers for damages for the physical and psychological damage he had suffered. After his death, his widow was substituted as the claimant. However, she also sought to sue for the loss attributable to the death by suicide under section 1 of the Fatal Accidents Act 1976. While IBC Vehicles accepted that the accident was a breach of the duty owed to Mr Corr to take reasonable care to avoid causing him personal injury, including psychological injury, they refused to admit liability for his suicide, arguing that it (1) fell outside the duty of care owed to him by the company; (2) was not an act which was reasonably foreseeable and therefore not one for which they should be held liable; (3) broke the chain of causation and constituted a novus actus interveniens; (4) was an unreasonable act which broke the chain of causation; (5) was the voluntary act of the deceased, and so precluded by the principle volenti non fit injuria; (6) amounted to contributory negligence.
The company’s appeal to the House of Lords was dismissed. The Lords held that the appellant owed Mr Corr a duty to avoid not only physical but also psychological injury and that the deceased had acted in a way that he would not have done had it not been for the breach by the appellant. In addition, suicide was found to be foreseeable. Although it was not a usual manifestation of severe depression, it was not uncommon. In these particular circumstances it was reasonably foreseeable by the appellant if one considered the possible effect of such an accident on a hypothetical employee. The appellant’s other arguments were rejected.