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.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

Email(Required)

OptOut

From time to time, we will send you emails about selected products, events and services from Personnel Today and OHW+ - but you can choose to opt-out at any time. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please tick this box.

Phone

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Δ

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