The reason for treating personal injury claims separately is that they raise problems not encountered in actions for other types of loss. In an action for financial loss, monetary compensation is adequate. Similarly, physical damage to property can be compensated by a monetary payment equivalent to the market value of the property damaged. But, where a person loses a leg or suffers pain, money is the only compensation available, but the market value of a leg or pain is impossible to ascertain. The concentration of English law on property rights appears to be to blame for this. As far as possible, the courts have treated personal injuries as depriving a person of a property right, but this approach is difficult to justify in relation to subjective losses, such as pain, suffering and mental distress. A particular variety of loss which creates difficulty of assessment of damage is that of mental distress. Such distress can be caused in one of two ways. In the first place, it may be distress consequent on physical injury and, secondly, it may result from some cause quite separate from any form of physical harm. The first of these two is readily dealt with as a variety of consequential loss, and provided it is not too remote it should be recoverable. The second variety is more problematic, but it should not be believed that English law gives no remedy for mental distress. In the first place, just as in the law of tort, an action for damages for breach of contract will be allowed where it is foreseeable at the time of contracting that the claimant might suffer psychiatric harm. For example, in Cook v Swinfen, the respondent solicitors negligently handled a divorce action with the result that the appellant, their client, suffered from an anxiety neurosis. In the event, it was held, on the facts, that a breakdown in health was not a foreseeable consequence of the failed litigation, but the court, nonetheless accepted that had it been a foreseeable loss, it would have been actionable.

DOI link for The reason for treating personal injury claims separately is that they raise problems not encountered in actions for other types of loss. In an action for financial loss, monetary compensation is adequate. Similarly, physical damage to property can be compensated by a monetary payment equivalent to the market value of the property damaged. But, where a person loses a leg or suffers pain, money is the only compensation available, but the market value of a leg or pain is impossible to ascertain. The concentration of English law on property rights appears to be to blame for this. As far as possible, the courts have treated personal injuries as depriving a person of a property right, but this approach is difficult to justify in relation to subjective losses, such as pain, suffering and mental distress. A particular variety of loss which creates difficulty of assessment of damage is that of mental distress. Such distress can be caused in one of two ways. In the first place, it may be distress consequent on physical injury and, secondly, it may result from some cause quite separate from any form of physical harm. The first of these two is readily dealt with as a variety of consequential loss, and provided it is not too remote it should be recoverable. The second variety is more problematic, but it should not be believed that English law gives no remedy for mental distress. In the first place, just as in the law of tort, an action for damages for breach of contract will be allowed where it is foreseeable at the time of contracting that the claimant might suffer psychiatric harm. For example, in Cook v Swinfen, the respondent solicitors negligently handled a divorce action with the result that the appellant, their client, suffered from an anxiety neurosis. In the event, it was held, on the facts, that a breakdown in health was not a foreseeable consequence of the failed litigation, but the court, nonetheless accepted that had it been a foreseeable loss, it would have been actionable.

The reason for treating personal injury claims separately is that they raise problems not encountered in actions for other types of loss. In an action for financial loss, monetary compensation is adequate. Similarly, physical damage to property can be compensated by a monetary payment equivalent to the market value of the property damaged. But, where a person loses a leg or suffers pain, money is the only compensation available, but the market value of a leg or pain is impossible to ascertain. The concentration of English law on property rights appears to be to blame for this. As far as possible, the courts have treated personal injuries as depriving a person of a property right, but this approach is difficult to justify in relation to subjective losses, such as pain, suffering and mental distress. A particular variety of loss which creates difficulty of assessment of damage is that of mental distress. Such distress can be caused in one of two ways. In the first place, it may be distress consequent on physical injury and, secondly, it may result from some cause quite separate from any form of physical harm. The first of these two is readily dealt with as a variety of consequential loss, and provided it is not too remote it should be recoverable. The second variety is more problematic, but it should not be believed that English law gives no remedy for mental distress. In the first place, just as in the law of tort, an action for damages for breach of contract will be allowed where it is foreseeable at the time of contracting that the claimant might suffer psychiatric harm. For example, in Cook v Swinfen, the respondent solicitors negligently handled a divorce action with the result that the appellant, their client, suffered from an anxiety neurosis. In the event, it was held, on the facts, that a breakdown in health was not a foreseeable consequence of the failed litigation, but the court, nonetheless accepted that had it been a foreseeable loss, it would have been actionable.