Garrett v London Borough of Camden

An employer is liable in negligence for psychiatric injury caused by workplace stress only where there was a real risk of breakdown which the employer ought reasonably to have foreseen and averted. Foreseeability ordinarily requires signs of impending breakdown or knowledge that the employee’s workload carried a real risk of breakdown.

Workplace conflict, management mistakes and stressful conditions do not by themselves provide the necessary notice. The assessment depends on the particular facts and what the employer knew or ought to have known about the employee’s susceptibility. An employee’s undisclosed vulnerability may therefore prevent liability.

Whistle-blowing is proper, but its occurrence alone does not establish a stress claim. The employee must prove that the relevant working conditions or adverse treatment caused the psychiatric injury and satisfied the ordinary requirements of negligence.

The claimant appealed from the Central London County Court, where Judge Butter QC had dismissed his negligence claim against his employer for psychiatric injury allegedly caused by workplace stress. Although duty of care and stress-related psychiatric injury were common ground, foreseeability, breach and causation remained disputed.

The claimant alleged that confused management, excessive work, harassment and victimisation associated with his reporting of apparent financial irregularities had caused his illness. He argued that the trial was unfair, sought to rely on extensive further evidence, and contended that the judge had misapplied the law and reached the wrong factual conclusions.

The central issues were whether the employer ought reasonably to have foreseen a real risk of breakdown, whether the later material undermined the trial findings, and whether the claimant’s whistle-blowing was causally connected to the actionable stress.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. Tuckey LJ delivered the leading judgment. Mance LJ and Simon Brown LJ agreed. The county court had applied the correct law and reached conclusions which were supported by its findings of fact.

2. The governing principles were accurately stated in Walker v Northumberland County Council [1995] 1 AER 737, with Petch v Customs and Excise [1993] ICR 789 providing particular guidance on foreseeability. Liability required awareness, actual or constructive, that the employee was showing signs of impending breakdown or that the workload carried a real risk of breakdown. Breach and causation also had to be proved.

3. Per Tuckey LJ, each workplace-stress case depends on its own facts. The existence of chaotic conditions, management mistakes, complaints and stressful personnel disputes did not establish that this employer ought to have foreseen psychiatric injury. Nothing alerted the employer to the claimant’s particular vulnerability, which had not been disclosed when he entered its employment.

4. Mance LJ agreed that internal differences, even if unattractive or apparently irreconcilable, did not themselves give notice of a real risk of breakdown. More decisive management might have been desirable, but that did not establish the required knowledge. The trial judge was also entitled to find that the decision not to promote the claimant had been reasonable and had to be communicated to him.

5. Simon Brown LJ emphasised that a real, reasonably foreseeable risk of breakdown was essential. The claimant knew materially more than his employer about his propensity to work-related stress. The findings that he was substantially more vulnerable than most and that the employer knew nothing of that vulnerability were fatal to the claim.

6. The claimant had acted properly in reporting apparent irregularities. The principle recognised in Cornelius v London Borough of Hackney that local government officers should report dishonesty was not in doubt. Nevertheless, whistle-blowing alone did not prove negligence. The claimant had not established that his concerns about the financial affair, or victimisation arising from them, caused the stress in issue.

7. The trial had been fair. The claimant withdrew his request for an adjournment, was permitted extensive cross-examination, and received appropriate assistance as a litigant in person. The later evidence did not undermine the credibility findings. The appeal was dismissed with costs, and permission to appeal to the House of Lords was refused.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The appeal was dismissed unanimously. The dismissal of the negligence claim was upheld, costs were awarded against the claimant, and permission to appeal to the House of Lords was refused: [2001] EWCA Civ 395.

2. Central London County Court: Judge Butter QC dismissed the claimant’s negligence claim on 5 August 1996. He found that psychiatric injury was not reasonably foreseeable, breach was unproved, and the claimant’s undisclosed vulnerable personality substantially accounted for his injury.