Last week it would have been difficult to miss the statistics: mental health affects 1 in 4 of us. In reality, it affects far more indirectly. Many people will have been affected by the mental health of a colleague, a friend or a family member. In addition, anyone with experience of mental health problems will … Continue Reading
Today we cross to the Emerald Isle for a recent lesson on bullying and negligence issued by the Irish Court of Appeal. Though not binding on the UK Courts, it is hard to see that any very different principles could apply here.… Continue Reading
With a clear link between increased employee wellbeing (both in terms of physical and mental health) and reduced sickness absence, many employers may use renewed New Year ambitions to adopt or promote employee wellbeing programmes. Businesses have introduced measures including step challenges with free pedometers, fruit ‘desk drops’ and health monitoring stations in the workplace. … Continue Reading
The Guardian Online reports the case of Paris resident M. Frederic Desnard last week. He is claiming over £280,000 in compensation for a nervous breakdown allegedly caused by his managerial job at French perfumiers Interparfum. However, no tale of excessive pressure and punishing working hours, this one. Instead, M.Desnard claims that his job was so … Continue Reading
A recent case before the French Supreme Court acts as a stark warning to employers of the importance of complying with the requirements in the French Labour Code to display their internal rules in the workplace. After the discovery of empty bottles of alcohol in the employees’ changing room, an employer required one of its … Continue Reading
Statistics show (and if they don’t, then they should) that by far the most despised piece of marketing by any UK law firm is the traditional desperate mailing sent out by Employment teams warning clients of the legal perils circling like sharks around the Christmas party. Within that single innocent event, burbles the flier, lies … Continue Reading
Health and safety laws rolled out around Australia since 2012 have imposed a new positive duty on company officers to exercise due diligence to ensure their “person conducting a business or undertaking” (PCBU – usually the corporate employer) is compliant. The term “officer” extends beyond the PCBU’s executives, directors and secretaries to any person who: … Continue Reading
If you drive from your home to your office and then your office to your client, only the second trip counts as working time for the purposes of the EU Working Time Directive. But what if you don’t have an office and so drive straight from your home to your first customer and at the … Continue Reading
In Newbound –v- Thames Water the Court of Appeal has recently upheld the ruling of the Employment Tribunal that Mr Newbound had been unfairly dismissed for gross misconduct despite his breaching company health and safety rules. The case highlights the difficulties faced by employers trying to enforce compliance with new health and safety procedures, but … Continue Reading
In the first two parts of this series (part 1, part 2) we looked at how the Courts still regard the 2002 judgment in Hatton –v- Sutherland as the definitive statement on the law for liability for stress-induced psychiatric injury in the workplace. However, although still commanding respect in relation to breach of duty and … Continue Reading
In Part 1 of this piece https://www.employmentlawworldview.com/uk-high-court-gives-useful-recap-on-liability-for-stress-induced-psychiatric-illness-in-the-workplace-part-1/ we considered the requirement of foreseeability as a condition of establishing an employer’s liability for stress-related psychiatric harm. Here we look at the other main ingredient, a breach of duty by the employer. It is not enough that an employee’s illness is as a matter of medical fact … Continue Reading
Every so often, there comes along a case which becomes the new baseline by which decisions in a particular field are made. In relation to employer liability for psychiatric illness caused by workplace stress, that case is Hatton -v- Sutherland in 2002, still going strong after 13 years and most recently upheld by the High … Continue Reading
The sad news that a Spanish nurse has contracted the Ebola virus is shocking but perhaps not unexpected. It was inevitably only a matter of time before the virus spread beyond West Africa. With the World Health Organisation predicting further Ebola cases among medical staff in Europe and the US, what steps should be employers … Continue Reading
Anything designed to reduce the burden of regulation on employers must be a good idea, right? Well, not necessarily, no, and certainly not the proposed Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill, a legislative proposal defective from conception to execution in almost every way it is possible to imagine. The Bill is designed, says proud sponsor … Continue Reading
Certain occasions call for a celebratory drink in the workplace – a colleague departing, a deal gone well or perhaps the end of a hard week. Yet from now on employees in France might have to rethink the way they mark such events. On 3 July, the Journal Officiel published a Decree stating that it … Continue Reading
Having survived almost exclusively on mince-pies and red wine over the festive period, I waddled into January with that familiar feeling of gluttony and self-loathing. The only saving grace is that I am not alone – I had been in the office no more than five minutes today when conversations about Christmas swiftly turned to … Continue Reading