In English law, a nervous shock is a psychiatric / mental illness or injury inflicted upon a person by intentional or negligent actions or omissions of another.
To amount in law to "nervous shock", the psychiatric damage suffered by the claimant must extend beyond grief or emotional distress to a recognised mental illness, such as anxiety neurosis or reactive depression.
It is well established in English law that a person who has intentionally and without good reason caused another emotional distress will be liable for any psychiatric injury that follows.
An example of this is a claimant who is involved in a car accident caused by the defendant's careless driving and gets mildly injured (or even remains unharmed) as a consequence, but the fright from the crash triggers a serious mental condition.
In several decisions, the courts have identified several strict requirements for the recognition of a duty of care not to cause nervous shock, as well as causation and remoteness: Currently leading cases include two House of Lords decisions arising from the Hillsborough disaster: and a third House of Lords decision in a case arising from a road traffic accident: See also McLoughlin v O'Brian [1982] 2 All ER 298, where the House of Lords outlines the concept of "immediate aftermath" of the accident and Attia v British Gas plc [1988] QB 304, where the Court of Appeal considered whether damages for nervous shock as a result of witnessing the destruction of property were recoverable.