Advice needed please on potential stress claim

[Bubbles12]

Hi all, I am hoping that someone can give me some advise please on the situation that I currently find myself in. I will try to keep this as brief as possible.

Last year, I was signed off with work related stress and was off for 4 x weeks. This was after I had a massive panic attack during a meeting at work with various team leaders and my manager. I was initially signed off for a fortnight and felt a lot better by week 3 so called my manager to say that I wanted to come back and was ready to discuss my return to work. I met with my manager in week 4 and explained that I felt unsupported by my team leader colleagues, unsupported by him and that my workload was bordering on ridiculous. He agreed that something needed to be done however off the record we were about to undergo a re-structure so I was due to be put into a redundancy pool with the other team leaders. In the interim period, he suggested that I pass the management of my team across to another team leader to reduce some of the pressure on me and came back to work to concentrate on my clients and to get involved in a couple of projects. I agreed that this seemed to be a reasonable interim solution and returned to work on the following Monday.

The long and short of the next 9 months is that I was ignored and left to pretty much please myself. I was not party to any of the team leader meetings and the one project that I was given to get involved in was on a subject that I knew very little about. After spending several hours completing this project to the best of my ability, I later found out that the work had been asked to do had already been done (months ago) and rolled out within the business. I was getting pretty low at this point - it was harder for me to be in "limbo" than working under pressure as before. I did have a meeting with my manager just before the redundancies were announced and it was suggested that I might want to a) drop a role level and just be a client adviser rather than a manager or b) take on a job that potentially would not exist in the new structure. I said that I did actually enjoy my Team Leader role and would just like to do that but there needed to be support in place from him and the other team leaders because my client base had not changed and my new team was going to be larger than the team I had previously (we were losing 2 x Team Leaders by redundancy). After the redundancies had been announced (I kept my job) I took on my new team and thought it's a clean slate let's get on with it. My workload over the next 8 months was larger than it was before the re-structure and needless to say I did not have the support that I was promised. I was criticized constantly by my manager for everything. This included things like where my desk was in the office, the perception that I was too friendly with my team, he thought I laughed too much, he accused me (in a very back handed way) of being a liar and he didn't manage the other team leaders to ensure that I was getting support when I needed it. I should probably point out at this point that my client workload was at least 4 x times heavier than the other team leaders). I was working evenings, weekends, waking up at 2am and sending e-mails to try and keep on top of everything. In February, he kept me behind following a meeting and asked how I was doing. At this point I broke down in tears and said that I was not coping. He just sat and looked at me and said that as the new branch manager had not yet been appointed there was nothing he could do and he suggested that when the appointment was made, I take it up with the branch manager.

So exactly 12 months to the day that I was signed off last year I had to be signed off work again with stress except this time round I am considerably worse and I am still off (14 x weeks so far). I am undergoing psychiatric treatment for 2 x days per week for depression and anxiety and I see a psychiatrist for an hour every week or 2 weeks depending on how "at risk" I am. This treatment was something that I arranged under my own private medical insurance. With the exception of the letter that HR sent me to say that their income protection insurers would be contacting me for a statement, I have heard nothing from my employer. I cannot talk to my manager and have not. He e-mailed me on the third / fourth week that I was off to "remind" me about the employee assistance telephone line (we had never spoken about this previously) and just seeing his name in my In-Box was enough to trigger a panic attack.

Now that I have been away from the situation for a length of time and I am starting to come to terms with my illness and the impact and restrictions that it is having and has had on my life for the last 2 years, I need to understand what my options are and would appreciate advice on the following:

1. A lot of info has been left out of the above to try to keep it brief but has my employer failed in their duty of care to me as an employee?
2. Should HR contact me at some point to discuss and understand what the issues are / were and to try to facilitate a return to work programme? The income protection insurers have stated that the treatment that I am receiving under Bupa is far in excess of anything that they can or would offer so they will not be in touch with me again
3. Should I be seeking legal advice? Can anyone recommend a good employment law solicitor?
4. Ideally I would like my employer to write me a cheque and for us to part company. The last 2 years of my life have been hell and I am not risking this happening to me again. Realistically, is this a possibility and what sort of things are taken into account when offering to "pay someone off"? If this is going to be a lot of stress for me to bring a claim for a couple of thousand pounds, I won't bother putting myself through the trauma of it.

Sorry for the length of this post - any advice would be really appreciated.

[Amethyst]

Re: Advice needed please on potential stress claim

Hiya xx You sound like you are absolutely on top of things. The employer has failed in its duty of care to you, the second breakdown was absolutely foreseeable, you'd had time off work and discussed the issues at length with your manager, and they had a duty to act to enable you to carry on in your job without it affecting your mental, and physical, health.

Have you read much of the case law in this area, there are some interesting cases which should help build a tribunal case.

A recent case (March 2010) with deals with the application of the principles in implied terms of duty of care is Conner v Surrey CC [2010] EWCA Civ 286. The employer breached its duty of care to the employee and caused her to suffer from stress and psychiatric damage by failing to intervene . It was foreseeable and bought to the employers attention and the employer failed to deal with the circumstances which caused the damage at an early stage. So have a read of that case as it appears to be quite relevant to your situation.

Also, in Sutherland v Hatton [2002 v Somerset County Council) Lady Justice Hale set out very clear guidance which has been referred to in numerous following cases the most recent being the above, Conner v Surrey CC [2010] The main points to be taken from Lady Hales comments might be.

1.No occupation is to be deemed more dangerous to mental health than any other.

2.Employer’s are entitled to believe an employee is able and capable of withstanding their occupation unless otherwise has been bought to their attention. ( it was )

3. The Employer can take what an Employee tells him at face value unless there are reasons to believe that further investigation is required. ( they were told the stress was solely down to work issues)


4. An Employer who offers a confidential advice/counselling service is unlikely to be found in breach of his duty of care. ( doesn't sound like they did from your post. He e-mailed me on the third / fourth week that I was off to "remind" me about the employee assistance telephone line (we had never spoken about this previously) and just seeing his name in my In-Box was enough to trigger a panic attack. they seem to have realised this a little too late)

Where the damage has been caused by multiple factors the Employer should only be liable for those directly attributable to any breach of his duty of care. ]eg. if there were any issues in your home life which contributed to the stress (eg death,divorce etc) the award would be reduced by a percentage.


Damages would be more than a couple thousand. I presume you are considering asking for a compromise agreement ? You do sign away your rights to bring a claim for constructive dismissal, or anything else, in return for a settlement so be very sure you want to follow that route, good side of it is it may be much less stressful.

I would certainly seek legal advice first.