Insurance surgery: Stressing the point

With the incidence of absences from work as a result of stress-related illnesses increasing and three recent High Court decisions in claims involving occupational stress and harassment, it is a good opportunity to consider the current state of play of claims for work-related stress. 

All three of these cases take as their starting point the 16 “practical propositions” from Hatton v Sutherland [2002] EWCA Civ 76, [2002] 2 All ER 1 when assessing issues of liability. For liability to attach it must be reasonably foreseeable by the employer that this particular employee is at impending risk of psychiatric harm and that such injury is attributable to stress at work as distinct from other factors. Foreseeability depends upon what the employer knows (or ought reasonably to know) about the employee. 

Bailey

In Bailey v Devon Partnership NHS Trust (11 July 2014, unreported) the claimant, a child and adolescent consultant psychiatrist, brought a claim covering two periods of employment—the first leading