Croft v Broadstairs & St Peter's Town Council

An employer is liable for psychiatric injury caused by disciplinary conduct only where such injury was reasonably foreseeable in the light of the information available to the employer. Unless the employer has sufficient notice of an employee’s psychiatric vulnerability, it may ordinarily assume that the employee can withstand the normal pressures of employment, including unfair or hurtful criticism.

Knowledge that an employee has received counselling does not by itself establish awareness of psychiatric vulnerability or of a risk that a reprimand may cause a nervous breakdown. Unfair treatment and factual causation cannot establish liability without the required foreseeability.

The claimant, a former town clerk with a history of recurrent depression, obtained damages of £197,401.51 in Canterbury County Court for psychiatric injury allegedly caused by the council’s negligent and contract-breaking disciplinary conduct. The county court found that councillors knew of her psychiatric vulnerability and that an unjustified warning letter and its subsequent ratification foreseeably caused her breakdown.

Permission to appeal had initially been granted only on quantum. The council renewed its application concerning liability when the quantum appeal came before the Court of Appeal. The central issue was whether the evidence supported the finding that the council knew enough about the claimant’s psychiatric condition to make a nervous breakdown reasonably foreseeable.

1. Disposition. The Court of Appeal unanimously granted permission to appeal on liability and allowed the appeal. The quantum issues consequently did not arise.
2. Potter LJ held that liability required proof that the claimant was psychiatrically vulnerable, that the council knew of that vulnerability, that psychiatric breakdown was foreseeable unless reasonable care was taken, and that the council materially caused the breakdown through conduct falling below the required standard. That approach reflected the principles in Hatton v Sutherland [2002] 2 AER 1 and was accepted by the parties.
3. The evidence did not support the county court’s crucial finding that the council knew of the claimant’s psychiatric vulnerability. At most, the claimant believed that one councillor knew she had received counselling. That did not establish knowledge of recurrent depression, particular sensitivity to rejection, or vulnerability to breakdown following a reprimand. Nor was there evidence that such information had been communicated to the mayor or the relevant sub-committee.
4. The claimant presented herself at work as robust, capable, methodical and efficient. The psychiatric evidence indicated that the warning letter was very unlikely to precipitate depression in a person without her special vulnerability. The council was therefore entitled, on the information available to it, to expect ordinary robustness. Her breakdown was not a reasonably foreseeable consequence of its conduct.
5. The council’s warning letter and subsequent conduct were unfair and hurtful. They factually precipitated the breakdown, but unfairness and causation did not supply the missing elements of knowledge and foreseeability. Tuckey LJ agreed and cautioned that sympathy and outrage must not lead a trial judge to make factual findings unavailable on the evidence. Hart J agreed with both judgments.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Granted the council permission to appeal on liability and unanimously allowed the appeal [2003] EWCA Civ 676. The quantum appeal did not arise.
• Canterbury County Court: His Honour Judge Nash entered judgment for the claimant for £197,401.51 on her claim in negligence or breach of contract. A single Lord Justice initially refused permission to appeal on liability but granted permission on specified quantum grounds and directed that any renewed liability application be heard with the appeal.