Is a defendant liable for a plaintiff’s mental health disorder?
British Columbia, Canada
The following excerpt is from Barron v Wine, 2021 BCSC 711 (CanLII):
The most basic principle of tort law is that the plaintiff must be placed in the same position he would have been but for the defendant’s negligence. Tortfeasors must take their victims as they find them, even if the plaintiff’s injuries are more severe than they would be for a normal person. However, a defendant need not compensate a plaintiff for any debilitating effects of a pre-existing condition that the plaintiff would have experienced anyway: Athey, at paras. 32–35. A defendant is responsible for psychiatric injury that is consequential to the physical injury he caused, even if it was unforeseeable: Hussack v. Chilliwack School District No. 33, 2011 BCCA 258 at para. 74.
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