Daniel v Secretary of State for the Department of Health
2014
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
- SIR ROBERT NELSON
Areas of Law
- Employment Law
- Tort Law
2014
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The case involved a claim of occupational stress and subsequent psychiatric injury by an employee against her employer due to alleged bullying and overwork. The court found that the psychiatric injury was not reasonably foreseeable and that there were no clear indications of impending harm to the Claimant’s mental health. Consequently, no duty of care was breached and the employer was not held liable.
Judgment
Sir Robert NELSON :
The Claimant was employed by the Defendant, in its earlier form as the Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow Health Authority, then the Hammersmith and Fulham Primary Care Trust, as Network Co-ordinator of the West London Cancer Research Network (WLCRN) re-titled later as Cancer Research Network Manager. She commenced employment in March 2002 and initially was responsible for setting up the network in conjunction with her line manager Dr Richard Kaczmarski, Consultant Haematologist at the Hillingdon and Ealing Hospitals, and the Network’s Clinical Lead. The Claimant and Dr Kaczmarski effectively built WLCRN from scratch, recruiting staff, establishing staff placements through the NHS Acute Trusts, building the local research portfolio, training and education and arranging finance and funding contracts.
The Claimant alleges that in the course of her employment with the Defendant she suffered occupational stress which developed into a psychiatric condition leading to her becoming an inpatient at a mental health hospital and seriously continuing mental ill health. It is agreed between the psychiatrists instructed by the parties that the Claimant had a pre-existing history of bipolar disorder which carried a very high rate of recurrence. It is also common ground that the Claimant’s pre-existing condition was unknown to the Defendant.
It is alleged that Claimant’s stress and subsequent mental illness were brought about by the negligence of her employers in permitting her to be bullied by Professor Hani Gabra, Professor of Medical Oncology at Imperial College London, and head of department at Hammersmith Hospital. The alleged bullying and victimisation was not, it is contended on behalf of the Claimant, properly dealt with by the Defendant. It is, the Claimant contends, reasonably foreseeable that such victimisation or bullying can lead to a risk of mental injury. The case was opened upon the basis that it was essentially one of bullying, with the Defendant’s failure to see that this was happening and deal properly with it by bringing to an end, but it is also alleged that from October 2005 the Claimant had effectively two jobs to do and was consequently seriously overworked. The Defendant, it is alleged, negligently permitted this overwork situation to continue, which contributed to the stress which the Claimant was under, leading to her psychiatric injury. The Claimant needed support from her line manager but this, save for a brief