Secondary victim claims in clinical negligence: No recovery following birth injury

The High Court decision in MIM v Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust [2026] EWHC 562 (KB) (17 March 2026) provides one of the first judicial applications of the Supreme Court's ruling in Paul and another (appellants) v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (respondent) to a  labour and delivery context.

The decision confirms that the "accident" requirement in Paul will be a barrier for most secondary victim claimants in clinical negligence cases. 

The claim was struck out pursuant to CPR 3.4(2)(a). 

Background and facts

MIM attended the birth of his son at the Jessop Wing of the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in June 2020. His wife had been admitted for an induction of labour. During labour, the CTG trace deteriorated and, due to admitted negligence on the part of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in managing the labour, MIM's son was delivered 17 minutes later than he should have been. The Trust accepted that delivery by 09:41–09:44 would have avoided all injury. The baby was born requiring resuscitation and suffered an acute profound hypoxic brain injury.

MIM remained present throughout the labour and delivery. He witnessed the monitor alarm sounding repeatedly, staff silencing it, expressions of concern being dismissed, and the final frantic moments of delivery - what he described as "panic stations". As a result of what he experienced, he developed an adjustment disorder.

MIM brought a claim for psychiatric injury as a secondary victim. The Trust applied to strike out the claim, arguing that what MIM witnessed did not constitute an "accident" as required by Paul.

The legal framework: Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust

By a majority of six to one (Lord Burrows dissenting), the Supreme Court held that a secondary victim's claim for psychiatric injury can only succeed where the claimant witnessed an accident - defined as "an unexpected and unintended event which causes injury (or a risk of injury) to a victim by violent external means."

Claims arising from witnessing a "medical crisis" - the suffering or death of a relative from illness or injury caused by a pre-existing condition, even one negligently left untreated - cannot succeed. An accident is a discrete event - something which happens at a particular time, at a particular place, in a particular way. 

The claimant's arguments

Counsel for MIM argued that:

• The "accident" should be understood as a continuum - running from the point at which the monitor alarms began sounding and the apparent confusion among staff became apparent, through to the delivery itself.
• Unlike in Paul, there was a close temporal connection between the negligence and the resulting injury, both of which MIM witnessed directly, rather than the negligence being remote in time and place from the injury.
• Everything done in the management of the mother was external to the baby, satisfying the "external means" element of the accident definition.
• Reliance was placed on paragraph 123 of Paul, in which the Supreme Court expressly declined to rule out the possibility that clinical negligence could, on appropriate facts, constitute an "accident" - for example, a doctor injecting a patient with the wrong drug and causing an adverse reaction witnessed by a family member.

The Court's analysis and decision

The Judge, Her Honour Judge Evans was unpersuaded by these arguments and granted the strike-out application. She determined that what MIM witnessed was not an accident, but rather "the process of labour and the birth of his son in an injured condition."

The matters pleaded could not constitute a discrete event happening at a particular time, at a particular place, in a particular way. The very characterisation of the "accident" as a continuum was, she observed, the antithesis of what the Supreme Court required.

The judge found that the external management of the mother did naot assist MIM. There was no accident affecting the mother, and the hypoxic injury to the baby arose from the bodily process of labour - not from any external traumatic event.

The judge acknowledged that secondary victim claims are not entirely excluded from the clinical negligence context. However, this decision reinforces Lord Burrows' observation in Paul that such cases will be rare. 

Conclusion

MIM v Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust confirms that courts will apply the accident requirement rigorously, without modification in the unique environment of the maternity setting.