Stressed employee wins £72,547

A
former maths teacher who lost his job through a stress-related illness has been
awarded £72,547 in damages.

Leon
Barber was originally awarded £101,000 against Somerset County Council, but
this was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2002. The House of Lords has now
ruled he was entitled to some damages, adding that his treatment was
unsympathetic.

Lord
Walker said the breach of the county council’s duty of care was "fairly
close to borderline", and the appeal court did not have sufficient reason
to overturn the original county court judge’s findings.

He
added that the appeal judges obviously considered Barber was not forceful
enough in what he had told his employers at interviews after taking time off
work for stress and depression.

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Lord
Walker said: "The senior management team should have made inquiries about
his problems and seen what they could do to ease them, in consultation with
officials at the county council’s Education Department, instead of brushing him
off unsympathetically."

By Mike Berry