For relevant general notes see Stress/damages claims for stress and Bullying at work .
Recent stress-related cases include:-
Mrs Lancaster had been transferred from her job as a senior draughtsman to a job as a housing officer in a neighbourhood office but, in spite of promises, was not given adequate training for her new job. She found she could not cope with the pressure of dealing with upset Council tenants who could be demanding and abusive. There was evidence from a consultant that the women Mrs Lancaster was of a fastidious and meticulous character with an obsessive personality. Whilst these qualities were valuable in the drawing office they were a disadvantage in the housing office.
(ii) Roderick McLeod. This senior housing benefits officer employed by Test Valley Council in Andover, Hampshire, suffered a mental breakdown and psychiatric injury in 1994 as a result of being "bullied, verbally abused and harassed by Susan Claydon, his line manager who was ..... set on securing his resignation or termination". The claim is reported to have been settled out of court for a sum in excess of £200,000 in January 2000.
(iii) Randy Ingram. Mr Ingram was employed by Hereford and Worcester County Council as warden at a gypsy site. Council managers failed to suport him when he tried to enforce council regulations. It is reported that he suffered physical and verbal abuse, was shot at and was attacked by the dogs of antisocial and disruptive groups on the site. He was backed by UNISON in his claim against the Council which is reported to have paid him £203,432 as an out-of-court settlement of his claim in early January 2000.
(iv) Michelle Gould.. Ms Gould was a graphic designer employed by Shell UK. Shell did not stop her using her computer mouse in an "unnatural" manner by holding it with her hand, wrist and forearm unsupported and were held responsible for her resulting RSI. The award was £25,000 - see Daily Telegraph news report on 24th September 1999, page 9.
(v) John Richards. Mr Richards was employed by West Glamorgan Fire Service in 1981. Apparently he became ill after being forced by "aggressive management" to transfer from his job as a sub-officer at Neath fire station to a desk job. The Fire Service apparently settled the case for a sum in excess of £150,000 (lawyers - Joanna Stevens of Thompsons)
(vi) Anonymous. A Scunthorpe post office manager who joined the Post Office in 1963 became ill in 1992 after a business review which. contrary to his expectations, led to an increased workload. This brought on depression and early retirment at the age of 53 in 1995. He is reported to have accepted £175,000 in an out of court settlement (lawyers - Andrew Darke of Irwin Mitchell).
(vii) James Cross. Mr Cross committed suicide after suffering from depression allegedly brought on by stress at work. Although the Court of Session (Scotland) held that the family's allegation that the cause of the suicide was stress at work was not proven, and so did not win any damages, the Court held that older cases are wrong in so far as they suggest that an employer's duty of care to employees, and the statutory obligation to provide a safe system of work, does not generally extends to taking care of the psychological health of the employee while at work but does so only in the limited circumstance of one-off "nervous shock" (see Cross v Highlands and Islands Enterprise CS 2001 IRLR 336).
(viii) Phil Danielson. The former prison education lecturer, Phil Danielson, who was taken hostage by the notorious inmate Charles Bronson at Hull Prison, has been awarded a £65,000 settlement by the Home Office for stress-related injuries sustained during his ordeal. On the day of the assault, Charles Bronson burst into a tutorial being taught by Mr Danielson, pushed him to the floor and held a knife to his ribs. During his 44 hours as Charles Bronson's hostage, he was kept tied up and subjected to abuse (see NATFHE Press Release of 27th June 2001).
(ix) Linda Newsome. Ms Newsome was employed by Sunderland City Council as an accountant. She suffered from tenosynovitis, the most typical form of RSI (repetitive strain injury), as a result of being issued with a chair which was so high her feet didn't reach the floor. This meant that she was continually leaning forwards which aggravated a latent back complaint. She took time off because of her condition but when she came back to work things got even worse. The Council refused to provide a better new chair and she had to work even longer hours using the old one in order to clear the backlog of work which had accumulated while she was off sick. What makes the case particularly noteworthy is that as a relatively high paid employee Ms Newsome is reported to be claiming no less than £250,000 compensation. She has already won a tribunal case establishing the Council's liability and negotiations on compensation are presumably now underway (see news item in The Guardian re Linda Newsome case, 17th September 2001).
(x) Mrs Morgan and Staffordshire University. This case is important because it shows that it is not enough for an employee merely to prove "stress" to support a tribunal claim (eg for constructive dismissal). An employee must demonstrate some form of recognised psychiatric illness if a claim is to succeed (see Morgan and Staffordshire University 2001 EAT on 11th December 2001).
(xi) Mrs Hatton, Mr Barber, Mr Bishop and Mrs Jones. The Court of Appeal handed down an important judgment on 5th February in four separate cases. The general tenor of the judgment was to the effect that an employer can usually assume that an employee can withstand normal job pressures (unless he knows of a particular problem or vulnerability). If a worker does not complain about stress and bring it to the attention of the employer he is unlikely to be succeed in a claim for damages (see notes at Sutherland v Hatton CA 2002 EWCA Civ 76 (Court of Appeal on 5th February 2002, reported at [2002], ICR 613 and at [2002] IRLR 263).
In 2004 the House of Lords expressly approved the general statement of the law set out by the Court of Appeal in Sutherland v Hatton CA 2002 (above) - see Barber v Somerset County Council HL 2004 UKHL 13 on 1st April 2004. However in Barber v Somerset County Council HL 2004 the House of Lords put increased emphasis on the duty of employers to be on the look out for signs of stress in their employees and to keep themselves abreast of developing knowledge of occupational stress and protective measures which can be taken to alleviate it. As a result, on the facts, the House of Lords did not agree with the Court of Appeal's conclusion in the Barber case. Alan Barber is a former teacher who was awarded £91,000 for loss of earnings plus £10,000 for pain, suffering and loss of amenity in a claim against Somerset County Council for work-related stress which led to depression and early retirement. He regularly worked 60 to 70 hours a week and the pressures of an OFSTED inspection did not help. Somerset County Council, encouraged by its insurers, won on appeal to the Court of Appeal but, on the facts, this judgment was overturned by the House of Lords on 1st April 2004 and his damages were reinstated (albeit reduced by some £30,000) .
(xii) Mr Maurice Young. This case is noteworthy because it shows the very high level of care the Courts (a County Court and the Court of Appeal) expect employers to exercise in favour of an employee who is known to be prone to stress related illness. Mr Young won compensation of over £90,000 from the Post Office even though he had returned to work voluntarily after a nervous breakdown. The Post Office had relied mainly on the employee telling them that he was still finding problems at work after his return and the Court found that this was not an acceptable excuse ( Young v The Post Office CA 2002 EWCA Civ 661, Court of Appeal on 30th April 2002).
(xiii) Miss Maureen Pratley. This case is a good example of the application of the guidelines laid down by the Court of Appeal in Sutherland v Hatton CA 2002 (above). Miss Pratley had not told her County Council employer that she was feeling under pressure and failed in a stress related claim she brought against them ( Pratley v Surrey County Council CA 2003 EWCA Civ 1067, Court of Appeal on 25th July 2003, reported at [2004] ICR 159).
(xiv) Marshall Specialist Vehicles Ltd v Osborne. In an important 2003 decision the EAT laid down that although an employee can make a "stress" claim against his employer on the basis that if the injury was forseeable the employer might be in breach of an implied contract term to take reasonable care for the safety of its employees, this would only be so if the breach was so serious that it would count as a fundamental breach of the contract ( Marshall Specialist Vehicle Ltd v Osborne EAT 2003 IRLR 672, EAT on 30th April 2003). It thus follows that as the law stands an employee will have more difficulty in winning a stress claim in an employment tribunal than in the High Court or County Court where the fundamental breach of an "implied contract term" test would not be a sine qua non to success (see also notes at Implied terms in employment contracts/duties of employer ).
(xv) Christine Bonser and R.J.B Mining. The Court of Appeal specifically held in June 2003 that a person claiming damages for psychiatric illness caused by stress at work must prove not just that it was reasonably foreseeable that overwork would lead to stress but also that the employer should have been aware that the stress would result in illness (see Bonser v RJB Mining (UK) Ltd CA 2004 , applying Sutherland v Hatton CA 2002 above)
(xvi) Donachie v Chief Constable Gtr Manchester Police CA 2004 , Court of Appeal on 7th April 2004 and Simmons v British Steel HL 2004 ICR 585, House of Lords on 29th April 2004 both show that the employer has to take the employee "as he finds him". The fact that the particular employee has, for example an unusually low pain threshold or is particularly susceptible to problems is bad luck on the employer as the "egg shell skull" defence does not work in this context.
(xvii) Hartman v South Essex Mental Health and Community Care NHS Trust etc CA 2005 , Court of Appeal on 19th January 2005. Six cases heard together by the Court of Appeal reemphasise that liability for psychiatric injury caused by stress at work is in general no different in principle from liability for physical injury. Therefore it is foreseeable injury flowing from an employer’s breach of duty which gives rise to this liability. The mere fact that an employee suffered stress at work and that the employer was in breach of duty in allowing that to occur does not mean that the employer is liable to the employee.
TUC figures suggest that union backed stress cases are rapidly increasing. In 1999 Unions took 783 cases to court against employers for stress-related illnesses, an increase of 70% on 1998. The TUC's annual "Focus on Services for Injury Victims" survey shows that work related stress increases twelve fold in 2001, with 6,428 new cases reported, compared with just 516 in 2000 (see TUC press release of 29th January 2002).
A feature of reported stress cases, especially earlier ones, is that the employee suffering from stress is frequently a public authority employee. Figures on the UK National Workplace Bullying Advice Line suggest that around 2/3rds of stress cases involve public sector employees and that social services employees (in particular those involved in housing) are particularly likely to make such claims.