09 May 2003

KEEBLE HAWSON

www.keeblehawson.co.uk

E-MAIL UPDATE

Stress Damages

We have seen an increase in stress claims since the case of Walker v Northumberland County Council (1995) in which the High Court ordered Northumberland County Council to pay damages to an ex-employee. The Court held that as employers they had a duty not to cause their employee psychiatric damage by giving him too much work and/or insufficient back up support. The general principle is that an employer is usually entitled to assume that the employee can withstand the pressures of the job. However, if it is reasonably foreseeable that there is a risk of injury (which must be a clinically recognisable condition) due to stress at work then the employer owes the employee a positive duty to make the working environment less stressful.

The recent non-employment law case of Atkinson & Anor v Seghal (2003) may have implications in this area. The Court of Appeal awarded a woman £90,000 damages against a car driver for trauma suffered as a result of an accident in which her daughter was killed. The mother did not witness the accident. So, consider this: an employee is killed in an accident at work caused by the negligence of the employer, as a result of this another employee suffers a psychiatric illness. Can it be shown that the employer owed a duty of care to the second employee, which has been breached entitling him to claim damages for personal injury? If it could be shown that the injury was reasonably foreseeable then arguably so.

Apart from possibly providing new rights for employees there is an insurance angle to this which prudent employers may wish to consider further.

For more information contact:-
Sarah Hall
0114 290 6329
sarahhall@keeblehawson.co.uk
www.keeblehawson.co.uk

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