In relation to tortious claims for psychiatric injury Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust ([2022] EWCA Civ 12) the Court of Appeal referred to three situations in which a claimant had sustained psychiatric injury after witnessing a death or other horrific event. In summary they were: first, there were accident cases, such as McLoughlin and Alcock, where the negligence and the injury, or threatened injury, to the primary victim, creating the horrific event, occurred at much the same time. Second, there were cases such as the instant where the negligence occurred at an earlier time than the horrific event caused by that negligence. Third, there were cases, like Novo, where the negligence caused two distinct potentially horrific events separated in time. Alcock had laid down five elements required to establish legal proximity in secondary victim cases. Although the five elements were laid down in the first category of cases, they were equally applicable to the other categories. The distinction that had caused so much difficulty and debate was between, on the one hand, the first and third category where the first or only horrific event occurred at much the same time as the negligence and the damage caused to the primary victim, and, on the other hand, the second type of case where there was a gap between those two events .

Evaluating the above statement, do you think that judicial decisions on tortious claims for psychiatric injury always produce a fair result between the parties?