D v Intel Corporation (UK) Ltd

An employer is liable for stress-related psychiatric injury only where a real risk of harm to health was reasonably foreseeable and reasonable steps were not taken. Ordinary complaints of pressure, excessive work or confused management do not necessarily establish foreseeability; the court must distinguish signs of stress from signs of impending illness. Once the risk is clear, the employer must take effective action, which may require reducing the workload and directing the employee to medical assistance. A confidential counselling service will not discharge the duty where the underlying demands are totally unreasonable and the service cannot reduce the workload. Causation and damages must reflect both the employer’s contribution and any pre-existing vulnerability or likelihood of illness in any event.

The claimant, an employee of the defendant, suffered a breakdown in June 2001 followed by chronic depression. She alleged that excessive hours, inadequate resources and confused reporting lines caused the breakdown, and that the defendant should have foreseen a real risk of psychiatric injury by December 2000 or, alternatively, before March 2001.

The claim required determination of foreseeability, breach, causation and damages. The court considered the significance of the claimant’s previous postnatal depression, her repeated communications about workload, a meeting with her manager in early March 2001, the defendant’s counselling arrangements, and the evidence of psychiatric causation.

1. Liability. The principles in Hatton v Sutherland [2002] 2 All ER 1 governed the claim. The defendant was not required to infer psychiatric injury merely from complaints of overwork or pressure. The relevant question was whether a real risk of harm to health was reasonably foreseeable in the circumstances.
2. The claimant’s previous episodes of postnatal depression did not, without more, make it reasonably foreseeable that ordinary work stress would cause work-related depression. The defendant was not fixed with the necessary knowledge merely because medical information was held by its human resources department.
3. The cumulative complaints and resource analyses before March 2001 did not, viewed individually or together, establish the required foreseeability. They showed that the claimant was under pressure but also appeared able to perform the work.
4. The position changed at the meeting with her manager in early March. The manager found the claimant in tears and asked her to set out the problem. Her detailed document, read in context, showed excessive workload, severe stress and a reference to having been in the same position twice before. The manager should have read the document carefully and asked her to explain that reference if he did not understand it. Had he done so, he would have learned of the connection with her previous depressive episodes.
5. Urgent action should then have followed. The claimant’s workload should have been reduced and she should have been directed to see her doctor. The defendant’s counselling service was insufficient because it could not reduce the workload or otherwise ameliorate the clear risk in the circumstances.
6. On causation, the court preferred the evidence that timely intervention after the March meeting would probably have reduced the severity of the depression. The work stress precipitated the breakdown, although the claimant had substantial pre-existing vulnerabilities and a significant risk of suffering depression in any event.
7. General damages were reduced by one third to reflect the claimant’s vulnerability and the chance of a depressive illness occurring without the defendant’s negligence. Past and future loss were discounted, and the future-loss multiplier was reduced to six. Counsel were directed to calculate the resulting damages.