Janice Croft v Broadstairs & St Peter's Town Council/

JurisdictionEngland & Wales
JudgeLORD JUSTICE POTTER,LORD JUSTICE TUCKEY,MR JUSTICE HART
Judgment Date15 April 2003
Neutral Citation[2003] EWCA Civ 676
CourtCourt of Appeal (Civil Division)
Date15 April 2003
Docket NumberB3/2002/1196

[2003] EWCA Civ 676

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)

ON APPEAL FROM CANTERBURY COUNTY COURT

(HIS HONOUR JUDGE NASH)

Before:

lord Justice Potter

Lord Justice Tuckey

Mr Justice Hart

B3/2002/1196

Janice Croft
Claimant/Respondent
and
Broadstairs & St Peter's Town Council
Defendant/Appellant

MR GEORGE PULMAN QC and MR SIMON JOHNSON (instructed by Frederick Hall, Folkestone, Kent, RT20 2UR) appeared on behalf of the claimant/respondent

MS SUSAN RODWAY QC (instructed by Vizards Wyeth, Dartford, Kent, DA2 6SL) appeared on behalf of the defendant/appellant

LORD JUSTICE POTTER

INTRODUCTION

1

In this unusual case the claimant, who is the former town clerk of the defendant town council ("the council"), on 29th April 2002 obtained judgment in her favour for £197,401.51 upon her claim for damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence or breach of contract of the council, such injuries taking the form of a "nervous breakdown" or, more accurately, severe psychiatric symptoms of depression giving rise to a prolonged depressive episode rendering her incapable of work. By the time of trial, she had not worked for five years and the judge regarded it as unlikely that she would work again. In addition to his award of general damages in the sum of £12,000, he made an award of special damage and future earnings loss based on his finding that, but for the council's breach of duty, the claimant would have worked on as town clerk to the age of 62. On that basis, the figure awarded for past loss of earnings was £70,985, and for future earnings loss £87,449.

2

There was an underlying difficulty in the case. As the judge found, the claimant was "superficially strong, undoubtedly decisive, methodical, meticulous, to the point of being a perfectionist", but, at the same time, she was, in the words of the medical experts, "psychiatrically vulnerable". She had for many years received specialist treatment by way of drugs and psychiatric counselling for recurrent depression arising from factors in her personal life. One of the principal issues before the judge on the question of liability was whether, and, if so, to what extent, the council was aware of these problems and ought to have appreciated that the stresses in her work might aggravate them. Equally, so far as quantum was concerned, there was an issue as to whether, and to what extent, it could be assumed that the claimant would have remained in employment but for the events which immediately triggered her nervous breakdown.

3

The claimant applied for leave to appeal the decision of the judge both as to liability and quantum. On 30th July 2002 the single Lord Justice refused permission to appeal in respect of liability, but gave leave to appeal on quantum in respect of grounds which asserted that the judge failed to take account of the claimant's underlying psychiatric problems in assessing the amount of general and special damage; that he was wrong to find that the claimant would have continued in work to the age of 62, this being against the weight of the medical evidence; and that he was wrong to find that the claimant had no residual earning capacity, this also being against the weight of the evidence.

4

The single Lord Justice also directed that any renewed application for permission to appeal on liability should be made to the court hearing the quantum appeal. We have heard the application and the appeal together.

The Factual Background

5

I take the background from the judgment below, though I am constrained to say that it was generally delivered in a somewhat discursive and rhetorical manner which does not render readily accessible the detail of the essential events.

6

The judge summarised the medical history of the claimant as:

"An established history of recurrent depression from childhood, continuing into adult life … She has been from time to time over the years receiving specialist treatment from drugs and from counselling. These difficulties of hers continued throughout the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s. She was from time to time seeing a community psychiatric nurse, albeit for counselling, over a period of many years through to the end of 1996 and then again, I find, in early 1997 … she remained at risk for further episodes of depression or anxiety, certainly from 1997 onwards. She was an individual at increased risk of an adverse psychiatric reaction to stress or, more importantly perhaps in this case, to particular acts or parts of conduct to which she might be subject … I was addressed at some length by counsel as to whether or not she was suffering from any psychiatric identifiable condition or just plain vulnerable. I have come to the conclusion that she was suffering from the former and it was not just a simple case of vulnerability in a possibly over-sensitive personality, as I touch upon later."

"Was the claimant suffering from a psychiatric condition which rendered her more vulnerable to stress than usual or that normally experienced by an employee with a reasonably heavy workload? The answer to that question must inevitably be yes."

7

Having so found, the judge acknowledged that to succeed under either limb the claimant must establish that, at the time of the acts of which the claimant made complaint, her employers knew of her psychiatric vulnerability and that it was more than simply the stress upon an employee who found difficulty in adapting to changes in the circumstances of her work.

8

In fact, the claimant's case was not principally based upon the assertion that her breakdown was caused by the nature of her employment, or even by special or unusual tasks she was required to carry out. It was her case that the triggering events for her nervous breakdown occurred at a time when she was off sick with bronchitis, and she unexpectedly received a letter of warning dated 13th November 1997 in respect of her conduct, as a result of which meetings and correspondence followed which so exacerbated her initial shock and distress that she was rendered incapable of work through depression. The judge approached the case on the basis that:

"For this case to succeed the claimant must prove that she was at all material times a [psychiatrically] vulnerable person; secondly, her employers were aware of this vulnerability; thirdly, it was foreseeable that unless they acted with reasonable care the claimant was likely to suffer harm, in other words a breakdown; and they, fourthly, materially caused her breakdown either by doing something no reasonable employer knowing her vulnerability should or would have done, or by failing to do something any reasonable employer should and would have done."

9

This was plainly the judge's encapsulation of the legal principles expounded by Hale LJ in Hatton v Sutherland [2002] 2 AER 1 as applicable to the claim of a primary victim in tort where the claimant is at risk of foreseeable psychiatric harm from the actions of the defendant and/or in contract where the harm is the reasonably foreseeable product of specific breaches of a contractual duty of care towards a victim whose identity is known in advance, such as an employee: see in particular paragraphs 21 and 23 of Hale LJ's judgment. There has been no issue between the parties on this appeal that, with the insertion in square brackets of the word "psychiatrically" in the passage I have quoted, and, in the light of the judge's acknowledgment that it meant "foreseeably likely to suffer a nervous breakdown", the judge's statement of the law was appropriate to the issues in the case. There is also no issue that the claim as pleaded, developed and decided by the judge was not a case where the triggering factor of the claimant's depressive illness/breakdown was undue stress by reason of the work she was required to do, but the writing of the warning letter on 13th November in circumstances in which (a) it should not have been sent without a prior approach to the claimant to hear her side of things and (b) it was accepted by the council in evidence that it would not have been sent, had they been aware of the claimant's psychiatric problems.

10

Reverting to the judge's four criteria of success, it was never an issue, as indeed the judge held, that the claimant satisfied the first criterion that she was in fact psychiatrically vulnerable, being the victim of long-standing recurrent depression (see paragraph 6 above). So far as the second criterion is concerned, he held that awareness of her vulnerability had also been proved. Suffice it to say at this stage that his finding in that respect forms the principal ground of appeal and I shall return to it in detail below. His finding also affects the third criterion because the joint experts were in agreement that, while it was arguable that the letter of 13th November might have been upsetting to an "ordinary, robust individual" it was "very unlikely to precipitate depression in a non-vulnerable person". As for the fourth criterion, in the light of admissions by council witnesses that, had the council been aware of the claimant's psychiatric problems, the letter would not have been sent, nothing in this appeal has turned on that issue.

11

In setting out the facts of the case, the judge started with a brief review of the claimant's working history from 1991 when she became deputy town clerk under the then town clerk, Mr Cox, with whom she worked well as a team. In that capacity he said that she was, upon the unchallenged evidence, "a committed and balanced worker with an unquestionable devotion to the town and with an exceptional knowledge of the...

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  • Ruffley v Board of Management of Saint Anne's School
    • Ireland
    • Supreme Court
    • 26 May 2017
    ...54. An employer is entitled to expect ordinary robustness from its employees; Croft v Broadstairs and St Peter's Town Council [2003] EWCA Civ 676. Correction and instruction are necessary in the functioning of any workplace and these are required to avoid accidents and to ensure that produc......
  • K v Chief Constable, Police Scotland
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    • Court of Session (Inner House)
    • 28 April 2020
    ...15 February 1990; Daily Telegraph, 15 February 1990; The Independent, 16 February 1990 Croft v Broadstairs and St Peter's Town Council [2003] EWCA Civ 676 Donoghue v Stevenson sub nom McAlister v Stevenson 1932 SC (HL) 31; 1932 SLT 317; [1932] AC 562; [1932] All ER Rep 1; [1932] WN 139 East......
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