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Workplace Stress: THE LEGAL ESSENTIALS -
The summaries of cases on these pages illustrate developments in the Law of Workplace Stress 1999 to 2007.
Foreseeability: Working Conditions
Foreseeability: Reasonable Steps
Foreseeability: Evidence: Notice of Psychiatric Injury
Foreseeability: Contributory Negligence
Foreseeability: Excessive Workload
Foreseeability: Arrangements for Return to Work
Victim classification: Employee Witnessing Colleague’s Death
Victim classification: Post-
Constructive dismissal: Implied Term to take Reasonable Care for Health and Safety of Employees
Constructive Dismissal: Medical Evidence
Unfair Dismissal: Cause of Illness
Unfair Dismissal: Employment Tribunal: Compensation for Personal Injury
Unfair dismissal: Common Law Remedy
Disability Discrimination: Anxiety Disorder: Medical Evidence
Disability Discrimination: Disability: Medical Diagnosis
Disability Discrimination: Disability: Evidence of Mental Impairment
Damages: Causation: Exacerbation of Pre-
Damages: Quantum: Bullying at Work
Post-
Damages: Quantum: Anxiety Resulting from Minor Physical Injury
Post-
Service Personnel: Safe System of Work
Employment Tribunal Procedure: Postponement of Hearing: Medical Evidence
Foreseeability: Race Discrimination
Breach of Contract: Unfair Dismissal
Knowledge of Employer: Special Educational Needs School Teacher
Foreseeability: Stress Reduction Policy
Vicarious Liability: Breach of Statutory Duty: Harassment
Psychiatric Injury: Harassment: Foreseeability
Stress: Duty of Care Owed: Foreseeability
Stress: Duty of Care Owed: Workload
Stress: Foreseeability: Vicarious Liability
Psychiatric Injury: Foreseeability: Duty of Care
Post-
Post-
Stress:duty of Care Owed: Workload
Psychiatric Injury: Foreseeability: Duty of Care
Post-
Disability Discrimination Update
April 2008
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Case Examples -
Sex Discrimination Disability Discrimination Workplace Stress Harassment & Bullying Employment Tribunals
Publications -
Duty of Care Owed: Knowledge of Employer
Chapman v Lord Advocate 2006 SLT 186, Scottish Outer House
Ms C, a former procurator fiscal, claimed compensation from her employer for psychiatric injury allegedly caused by workplace stress between April 1997 and January 1999. She alleged that this had been caused by the fault and negligence of her former line manager, for whom her employer was vicariously liable. She also claimed compensation directly from her employer.
Ms C complained of a heavy workload and a shortage of qualified lawyers when she
started work in 1997, that he line manager had known about this, and that she had
suffered intermittent absences from work throughout 1997 and 1998 because of a variety
of symptoms of ill-
Decision:
1. The claim failed.
2. Ms C’s evidence did not support the existence of a duty of care on the part of her line manager to take reasonable care not to cause her psychiatric injury.
3. Her evidence was wholly inadequate to form a basis for saying that the line manager knew, or ought reasonably to have known, that she was likely to suffer psychiatric illness as a result of stress at work.
4. There was no monitoring duty on an employer to take reasonable care to prevent psychiatric injury to the workforce in general.
5. Ms C’s claim directly against her employer was even weaker than her claim against her line manager. She had chosen to allege breach of duty against her former employer on the basis that he knew or ought to have known various things about her, her work, the organisation and administration of the office in which she worked and the complaints which she had made against her line manager, but without any averments of fact in support.