Pschological Injurues
Civil Liability for Stress
An employer must take care, not only for its employees’ physical health but must also protect them against mental injury and factors which would cause it, such as stress, harassment and bullying in employment. An employer is potentially liable in damages for its failure to take care to protect its employees against mental injury, as well as physical injury.
An employer must take care to avoid psychiatric injuries to employees induced by stress arising from employment conditions and workload. It must take care to avoid harassment or bullying of employees by fellow employees. If it fails to do so, it may be liable for damages for breach of duty which leads to psychiatric injuries thereby induced.
The ordinary principles of negligence apply to an occupational claim based on mental injury, most commonly workplace stress. Each element of negligence must be shown. In order to find liability for negligence, the mental injury must be foreseeable. The injury must be a definite identifiable and diagnosable psychiatric or psychological injury or illness.
It must be shown what steps the employer could and should have taken. The employee must show that the failure to take those steps has caused or materially contributed to the harm.