Can bereaved families sue doctors?

Supreme Court to rule on psychiatric injury resulting from clinical negligence

Wilkinson v Downton, decided by the High Court in 1897, is the one ruling on nervous shock that law students of my generation remember.

Thomas Wilkinson was landlord of the Albion public house in Limehouse, London. One day in 1896, he left his wife to manage the pub while he went off to the races. Downton, a regular at his pub, decided to play a cruel pr…