Stress at Work in UK Law
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Barber v Somerset County Council
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No-one can blame an employee who tries to soldier on despite his own desperate fears that he cannot cope, perhaps especially where those fears are groundless. No-one can blame an employee for being reluctant to give clear warnings to his employer of the stress he is feeling. On the other hand it may be difficult in those circumstances to blame the employer for failing to recognise the problem and what might be done to solve it.
Here again, it is important to distinguish between signs of stress and signs of impending harm to health. Stress is merely the mechanism which may but usually does not lead to damage to health. If the employee or his doctor makes it plain that unless something is done to help there is a clear risk of a breakdown in mental or physical health, then the employer will have to think what can be done about it.
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Bonser v UK Coal Mining Ltd (formerly RJB Mining (UK) Ltd)
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LORD PHILLIPS, MR: An employer will be in breach of duty to an employee if the employer subjects the employee to severe pressure of work in circumstances where the employer knows, or ought reasonably to foresee, that this is likely to cause the employee to suffer some form of breakdown which results in psychiatric injury. Happily, most employees are sufficiently robust to withstand the stress of a heavy work load.
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Majrowski v Guy's and St Thomas's NHS Trust
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Courts are well able to recognise the boundary between conduct which is unattractive, even unreasonable, and conduct which is oppressive and unacceptable. To cross the boundary from the regrettable to the unacceptable the gravity of the misconduct must be of an order which would sustain criminal liability under section 2.
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White and Others v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police and Others
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It is a non sequitur to say that because an employer is under a duty to an employee not to cause him physical injury, the employer should as a necessary consequence of that duty (of which there is no breach) be under a duty not to cause the employee psychiatric injury: see Hilson, Nervous Shock and Categorization of Victims, [1998] Tort L.R. 37, at 42. The rules to be applied when an employee brings an action against his employer for harm suffered at his workplace are the rules of tort.
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Hartman v South Essex Mental Health and Community Care NHS Trust
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It is foreseeable injury flowing from the employer's breach of duty that gives rise to the liability. It does not follow that because a claimant suffers stress at work and that the employer is in some way in breach of duty in allowing that to occur that the claimant is able to establish a claim in negligence. As Simon Brown LJ put it in Garrett v Camden London Borough Council [2001] EWCA Civ 395, paragraph 63:
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Hatton v Sutherland; Barber v Somerset County Council
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This is, I think, useful practical guidance, but it must be read as that, and not as having anything like statutory force. Every case will depend on its own facts and the well-known statement of Swanwick J in Stokes v Guest, Keen and Nettlefold (Bolts and Nuts) Ltd [1968] 1 WLR 1776, 1783, remains the best statement of general principle:
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Employment Act 2002
... ... of the Employment Rights Act 1996; to make provision about fixed-term work; to make provision about flexible working; to amend the law relating to ... ...
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The Dogger Bank Creyke Beck Offshore Wind Farm Order 2015
... ... "array area" means the area within which Work No. 1A or 1B may be constructed, which are the areas enclosed within a ... Force majeure ... 8. If, due to stress of weather or any other cause, the master of a vessel determines that it ... ...
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Merchant Shipping (Safety and Load Line Conventions) Act 1932
... ... by a ship from her intended voyage due ... solely to stress of weather or any other circumstance ... which neither the master nor the ... It must not interfere in any way with the navigation and necessary work of the ship, or with the provision of a safe margin of stability at all ... ...
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The Norfolk Boreas Offshore Wind Farm Order 2021
... ... other than operations consisting of site clearance, demolition work, archaeological investigations, environmental surveys, investigations for ... 1 ... (13) Force majeure(1) If, due to stress of weather or any other cause the master of a vessel determines that it is ... ...
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Stress at Work: Do Managers Really Count the Costs?
Organizations are being forced to contend with an increasingly diverse range of influential factors which have implications for their efficiency and effectiveness. Such factors are likely to create...
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Stress At Work: A Review and Theoretical Framework, II
In Part I of this paper we reported the main findings of a survey of the literature on occupational stress. We were particularly concerned to try to estimate the size of the problem of stress at wo...
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Line management competence: the key to preventing and reducing stress at work
Purpose: Work‐related stress is a major concern for employers, and the UK Health and Safety Executive has introduced Management Standards for employers to support them in managing stress in the wor...
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Stress at Work: The Beliefs and Experiences of Police Superintendents
Stress and stress-related illness are recognised as an occupational health hazard. There is an increasing number of police officers reporting mental illness as a result of stress at work. This repr...
- Stress At Work
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Stress at Work: An Employer's Liability?
In Easton v B&Q Plc [2015] EWHC 880, the High Court considered whether an employer was liable for an employee’s psychiatric injury caused by work-related stress. Easton had been a high perform...
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