Easton v B & Q Plc

In claims for psychiatric injury caused by workplace stress, liability requires proof that harm of the kind suffered by the particular employee was reasonably foreseeable. The employer must have sufficient knowledge of an imminent risk of psychiatric illness, not merely knowledge of pressure, overwork or general workplace stress. A failure to conduct a generic stress risk assessment does not remove that requirement. Such an assessment may, in an appropriate case, contribute to constructive knowledge of an individual risk, but only where it would have identified a relevant general risk and prompted effective individual assessment. A previous psychiatric illness makes vulnerability known, but does not make every subsequent management decision negligent. The employer remains liable only where the relevant act created a foreseeable risk of recurrence and amounted to a breach of duty.

The claimant, a senior retail-store manager, claimed damages from his employer for depression allegedly caused by excessive workplace stress and for a relapse following an attempted return to work. He relied on the disruption caused by changes to stock replenishment and the introduction of a Trade Point mezzanine, alleged failures to respond to complaints and a lack of stress risk assessment. He also alleged that the defendant’s handling of his phased return to work, including an offer of temporary management work at another store, caused further psychiatric injury. The defendant accepted the psychiatric illness and a substantial contribution from occupational stress, but disputed foreseeability, breach and causation. The central issues were whether psychiatric injury was foreseeable, whether the defendant’s risk-assessment arrangements altered that analysis, and whether the return-to-work arrangements were negligent.

Claim dismissed. The claimant failed to establish foreseeability, breach of duty or causation.

1. The applicable principles were those stated in Hatton v Sutherland [2002] ICR 613. The ordinary principles of employer’s liability applied. The claimant had to show that psychiatric injury attributable to workplace stress was reasonably foreseeable in his particular case. The indications of impending harm had to be sufficiently plain for a reasonable employer to realise that action was required.
2. In relation to the first breakdown, the claimant was an experienced manager with no history of psychiatric difficulty. Neither his personal circumstances nor the circumstances of store managers generally indicated a foreseeable risk of psychiatric illness. The workplace pressures were real but did not, without more, establish foreseeability. The alleged failure to discuss promotion prospects also involved no breach of duty.
3. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 did not dispense with the need to prove that the particular psychiatric injury was foreseeable. A generic risk assessment might, in an appropriate case, provide constructive knowledge of an imminent individual risk. On the facts, however, a general assessment would not have identified a general risk of psychiatric injury, and an individual stress assessment would not have produced an earlier effective warning.
4. By the time of the attempted return to work, the defendant knew that the claimant was vulnerable. That did not make liability automatic. The relevant question remained whether the particular proposed work created a foreseeable risk of recurrence and whether the way it was offered was unreasonable. The judge accepted the manager’s account that the temporary post was offered as an option, without pressure or bullying. The offer was reasonable and did not breach the duty of care.
5. Even if the meeting had amounted to a breach, the medical evidence did not establish a significant causative effect on the claimant’s illness. The claim therefore failed in its entirety.