Stress at work claims

The claimant made a formal complaint about the conduct of her fellow employee, following which a formal disciplinary investigation was carried out which led to her colleague being dismissed.

The colleague’s mother also worked at the home and she repeatedly discussed her daughter’s disciplinary case with others within the earshot of the claimant and made comments about the claimant to the extent that it became clear that the claimant’s identity as the whistle-blower in relation to her daughter’s behaviour, had been made known by her employers.

As a result, the claimant suffered panic attacks and psychiatric injury. Despite this continuing unacceptable behaviour, the care home simply turned a blind eye and took no action to address this and allowed the claimant to continue to be subjected to many months of bullying and harassment from her fellow employee.

Following the assault, it became apparent that the local authority had been fully aware prior to this incident that this person had previously displayed hostile behaviour but had failed to properly assess the risk he posed to members of staff or to put in place appropriate measures to ensure staff were kept safe or to minimise the risk. In addition, his employers failed to put in place an adequate system to address the impact of the assault upon him following the incident, resulting in an exacerbation in his psychiatric injury.

Our client was experienced in their field, having worked as an Offender Manager/Probation Officer within the prison service for around 10 years when she was transferred to a new team. The atmosphere of the new team was boisterous and our client found they were the subject of many personal and childish remarks.

One particular individual’s behaviour escalated, becoming unacceptable and bullying in nature. The individual began to mock her religious beliefs and forced her to watch inappropriate video footage stored on his phone.

When our client complained about the individual’s behaviour, she had hoped it would make the behaviour stop. Unfortunately, however it led to our client being excluded from the team and suffering further harassment designed to humiliate her.

As a result of experiencing this persistent and inappropriate behaviour, our client was forced to take time off work with a psychiatric injury.

We obtained medical evidence to establish the extent of the psychological injury before approaching the defendant to enter into settlement negotiations, despite their denial of liability.

Read the full case study here.

Our client alleged his psychiatric injury was caused by the negligence of his employers by giving him an unrealistic workload and level of responsibilities over several years, increasing the burdens on him at work while removing the resources and assistance needed to do his job effectively. He was working excessive hours including on-call time at weekends and evenings and was unable to take his full holiday allocation.

His employers were handed a letter from his GP warning of the toll work pressures were having on his health. He was referred to occupational health and an action plan drawn up to improve the situation. Unfortunately, that action plan was never implemented by his manager, who was distracted by her own grievance against her manager. His condition deteriorated, leading to his breakdown six months later and his permanent ill-health retirement, over 10 years early..

During the ten years it took to bring Tom’s claim to its successful conclusion there were various delays over which Brachers had no control; some by the courts but also delays and breaches by the defendant’s insurers and their solicitors. They did make one offer of £100,000 to settle six years earlier, which Brachers considered inadequate and client therefore rejected.

Following a retrial our client was awarded the revised principal sum of £175,343.11 before interest and enhancements. However, because the claimant had matched and beaten his previous offers, he was awarded a 10% enhancement to his damages and an enhanced rate of interest of 8% per year from the date of his original offer. Our client’s revised award was just short of £300,000.

Read the full case study here.