Bonser v UK Coal Mining Ltd

In a claim for psychiatric injury caused by workplace stress, the employer’s duty is triggered by reasonably foreseeable injury to health, not by foreseeable stress or overwork alone. The question is whether a harmful reaction is foreseeable in the individual employee. Ordinarily, the employer may assume that an employee can withstand normal job pressures unless there is particular reason to apprehend individual vulnerability or clear signs of impending harm to health. Excessive demands, inability to cope and breach of an internal work-allocation arrangement do not by themselves establish the necessary foresight. A single episode of tears and understandable upset about a threatened holiday was insufficient. Applying Hatton v Sutherland [2002] 2 All ER 1, the appeal was allowed.

The claimant brought proceedings against her former employer for psychiatric injury attributed to workplace pressure. Following a hearing before His Honour Judge Moore in Sheffield, judgment was entered for her in the sum of £38,056.10. The judge found excessive workload and unreasonable management in 1996, and concluded that earlier intervention would have delayed the subsequent illness.

The employer appealed, contending that the evidence established no more than foreseeable stress or overwork. The central issue was whether, before December 1996, there were sufficient indications that psychiatric injury was reasonably foreseeable in the claimant personally.

1. Disposition. The appeal was allowed unanimously. The judgment for the claimant was set aside, with costs in the Court of Appeal and below.
2. Applicable principles. The Court of Appeal applied the principles in Hatton v Sutherland [2002] 2 All ER 1. The relevant inquiry is whether a harmful reaction to workplace pressures was reasonably foreseeable in the individual employee, involving injury to health attributable to stress at work. Foreseeability of stress or overwork alone is insufficient. In the ordinary case, the employer must have particular reason to apprehend danger to the individual, such as knowledge of particular vulnerability or clear signs of impending harm to health.
3. Evidence and application. The trial judge was entitled to find that the claimant was overworked, that management imposed excessive demands and that earlier intervention might have delayed the illness. Those findings did not establish foreseeability of psychiatric injury. The employer was unaware of the claimant’s pre-existing emotional vulnerability, and her conscientious compliance did not reveal it.
4. The claimant’s only visible sign before the relevant period was a single occasion on which she became tearful and upset after additional work appeared to threaten her holiday. Viewed objectively, that was understandable distress about work pressure. It was not a sufficiently clear indication of an impending psychiatric breakdown. The trial judge therefore treated vulnerability to stress or overwork as equivalent to foreseeable psychiatric injury and applied too low a threshold.
5. The causation finding could not cure the absence of the necessary foreseeability and breach. The appeal was accordingly allowed and the judgment set aside.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): On 9 June 2003, the court allowed the appeal and set aside the judgment, with costs here and below: [2003] EWCA Civ 1296.
• High Court, Queen’s Bench Division (Sheffield District Registry): His Honour Judge Moore awarded the claimant £38,056.10 for psychiatric injury attributed to workplace stress.