Stress At Work

The number of claims by employees involving stress is likely to increase following a recent Court of Appeal decision. The Court put a high duty of care on employers dealing with stressed employees.

Stress is a growing problem in British workplaces losing millions of manhours every year. Employers and employees both need to understand their respective responsibilities when stress at work rears its head.

In Daw v Intel Corp (UK) Limited 2007, Tracy Daw was employed by Intel for around 13 years before she suffered a significant breakdown in June 2001 and became unable to work. Initially she was employed as a finance assistant and during that time she had two periods off work with post natal depression.

After returning to work Ms Daw was promoted to a more complex position involving working on payroll integration when Intel merged or acquired other companies. A company reorganisation soon followed increasing her workload and the number of managers she reported into, some of these were unaware of her previous post natal depression.

Ms Daw made at least 14 complaints to her managers over the next 6 months until in March 2001 one of her managers found her at her desk in tears. She was asked to put her concerns in writing and she did so. In reply, Intel promised action. Unfortunately, the additional help did not materialise and Ms Daw’s health deteriorated.

When the case was initially heard the Judge decided that injury to Ms Daw’s health was reasonably foreseeable by March 2001 and that Intel ought to have reduced Ms Daw’s workload immediately. Intel pointed out that an external confidential counselling service was available to Ms Daw throughout. The Judge decided this was not sufficient action and decided that if Intel had taken appropriate action in March 2001, the breakdown would probably have been prevented and awarded Ms Daw damages of over £130,000.

The Court of Appeal upheld the findings of the first Judge saying he was fully entitled to decide that Ms Daw’s stress and ill health had been caused by a failure of management and that the injury was foreseeable enough by early March 2001 to require immediate action. The Court also indicated that notwithstanding earlier Court of Appeal guidance in the leading case of Hatton v Sutherland, counselling Services provided by employers are not a panacea which discharges their duty of care in all cases.

This decision makes it essential that all employers’ procedures can identify and deal with stress. Equally, employees must bring any concerns to the attention of their employers as soon as possible.