Stress at work

Hartman v South Essex Mental Health and Community Care NHS Trust; Best v Staffordshire University; Wheeldon v HSBC Bank plc; Green v Grimsby and Scunthorpe Newspapers Ltd; Moore v Welwyn Components Ltd; Melville v Home Office CA TLR 21 January

Liability for psychiatric injury caused by stress at work is in general no different in principle from liability for physical injury. It was foreseeable injury flowing from the employer’s breach of duty that gave rise to the liability. It did not follow that because a claimant suffered stress at work, and the employer was in some way in breach of duty in allowing that to occur, the claimant was able to establish a claim in negligence. The practical propositions set out in Hatton v Sutherland [2002] ICR 613, 631–632 paragraph 43 remained helpful signposts for judges faced with the sometimes complex facts of stress at work cases, although care should be taken in their application since they were not intended to cover all the infinitely variable facts that are likely to arise.