Hartman v South Essex Mental Health and Community Care NHS Trust;
Best v Staffordshire University;
Wheeldon v HSBC Bank plc;
Green v Grimsby & Scunthorpe Newspapers Ltd;
Moore v Welwyn Components Ltd;
Melville v Home Office: [2005] EWCA Civ 6

CA: Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers MR, Tuckey and Scott Baker LJJ: 19 January 2005

Liability for psychiatric injury caused by stress at work was in general no different in principle from liability for physical injury. Liability depended not only on proof of psychiatric injury arising from stress at work and breach of duty of care by the employer, but also on proof that injury flowing from the employer's breach of duty was foreseeable.
Where an employer foresaw that employees exposed to particular traumas might suffer psychiatric injury and a particular employee suffered such injury as a result of such trauma, having previously shown no impending signs of psychiatric injury, foreseeability would be established and it was not relevant additionally to ask whether the employer could reasonably have foreseen the risk of injury to the particular employee.
In a claim for loss of earnings arising from work-related psychiatric injury, as with a claim for general damages, the employee's damages should be reduced to reflect the fact, which it was for the employer to establish, that causes other than the employer's breach of duty contributed to the loss.
In six separate claims for damages against employers for psychiatric illness caused by stress at work five defendants and one claimant appealed against decisions on liability and/or damages.

The Court of Appeal held:
(1) In the first case, the judge erred in attributing to the defendant, in its capacity as an employer, knowledge of confidential medical information disclosed by the claimant to an employee within the defendant's occupational health department, since no other employee had any right of access to that information without the claimant's consent. The judge should have rejected the claim on the ground that it was not reasonably foreseeable that the claimant would suffer psychiatric injury.
The defendant's appeal was allowed.
(2) In the second case, the judge's finding that the claimant's breakdown was reasonably foreseeable was vitiated by significant errors of fact and contrary to the weight of the evidence. There were no sufficient indications of impending harm to the claimant's health arising from stress at work, and the judge should have dismissed the claim on the ground that the claimant's health breakdown was not a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the conditions under which he was required to work.
The defendant's appeal was allowed.
(3) In the third case, although it would only be in exceptional circumstances that someone working part time would succeed in a claim for injury caused by stress at work, in the circumstances, the judge was entitled to conclude (i) that the particular kind of harm which the claimant suffered was reasonably foreseeable, (ii) that the defendant was in breach of its duty of care to her in failing to discuss with her what action might be taken to reduce the stress of her work, and (iii) that she suffered an identifiable psychiatric injury as a result of stress at work; and there were no grounds for interfering with the judge's award of damages.
The defendant's appeal was dismissed.
(4) In the fourth case, although the claimant had referred in a memo to his superior to problems at work starting to affect his health, the context in which the complaint was made was highly relevant, as a planned meeting to discuss his concerns never took place because the claimant walked out; and the judge had correctly applied the guidance set out in the relevant case law and correctly concluded that the defendant did not and could not reasonably have been expected to foresee the kind of injury to health suffered by the claimant.
The claimant's appeal was dismissed.
(5) In the fifth case, once the claimant had shown that the cause of the illness which had resulted in his retirement was sustained bullying by the defendant's employee, it was for the defendant to establish through clear medical evidence that there were other potential causes of the claimant's loss of earnings, such as his predisposition to depressive illness, but it had failed to do so. The judge was therefore right to award the claimant the full amount of his loss.
The defendant's appeal against the award of damages for loss of earnings was dismissed.
(6) In the sixth case, on the evidence, the defendant had plainly foreseen that employees who were exposed to particular traumatic incidents might suffer psychiatric injury and it could not therefore be said that such injury to the claimant was not foreseeable merely because the claimant had not previously shown impending signs of stress.
The defendant's appeal against the judge's preliminary finding that the claimant's injury was foreseeable was dismissed.

Appearances: Andrew Hogarth QC (Barlow Lyde & Gilbert) for the defendant trust; Andrew Glennie (Newman & Maxwell, Canvey Island) for Mrs Hartman; David Platt and Matthew Boyle (Berrymans Lace Mawer) for the defendant university; Kathleen Anderson (Gowmans, Paignton) for Mr Best; Robert Stokell (Halliwells LLP, Manchester) for the defendant bank; Richard Seabrook for (Thompsons, Nottingham) Mrs Wheeldon; Julian Matthews (Paul Rudd, Grimsby) for Mr Green; Richard Swain (DLA LLP, Grimsby) for the defendant newspaper; Winston Hunter QC and Simon Burrows (Halliwells LLP, Manchester) for the defendant company; Simon Dyer (John O'Neal & Co, Newcastle upon Tyne) for Mr Moore; Wendy Outhwaite (Treasury Solicitor) for the Home Office; Nigel Cooksley QC (Augustines Injury Law, Bristol) for the claimant.