Nervous shock is a phrase used to describe a type of claim, most usually in negligence, where injury to the claimant is not clearly physical.

... Nervous shock is a phrase used to describe a type of claim, most usually in negligence, where injury to the claimant is not clearly physical. It is, tenuously, neither a medical condition nor legal category. One may not claim for nervous shock due to a physical injury caused by, say, being run down by a vehicle or kicked by a horse. Similarly, merely because one has suffered a fright and subsequently an emotional reaction, this is not in itself cause for nervous shock. The physical injury must be a visible disability or provable illness or injury in order to give rise to a claim. The historical developments of nervous shock are slow to take form and this is shown in the case, heard in the Privy Council, of Victorian Railway Commissioners v Coultas. In this case a railway crossing gate keeper negligently allowed a carriage to cross over the tracks as

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