Last updated 05:37, Friday, 05 September 2008

EMPLOYERS may be counting the cost after the House of Lords’ recent ruling that a company was liable for the suicide of a depressed employee.

Duty of care: As well as ensuring that health and safety policies and procedures are in place to minimise the risk of injury to employees, employers should also have effective procedures for identifying and dealing with workplace stress and bullying

Employees, or their dependants, are entitled to claim damages for injury caused by a workplace accident if:

There was a duty of care owed to the injured person;

That duty was not performed;

It was reasonably foreseeable that harm would result from a failure to discharge the duty of care.

In Corr v IBC Vehicles Ltd, the House of Lords ruled that the widow of a man who committed suicide six years after he suffered severe head injuries in a workplace accident should receive damages from his former employer.

Thomas Corr had no history of psychiatric illness prior to the accident in 1996, after which he underwent lengthy and painful reconstructive surgery. He began to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder and subsequently became severely depressed. In May 2002, he killed himself

Mr Corr’s widow sued IBC Vehicles for pain, suffering and loss caused by the accident and by her husband’s suicide. IBC Vehicles admitted liability for the accident but denied liability under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 for the suicide. The High Court awarded Mrs Corr damages of £82,520 but dismissed the Fatal Accidents claim. In the Court’s view, the employer’s duty of care to the deceased did not extend to preventing his suicide and his suicide was not reasonably foreseeable.

The Court of Appeal later overturned this decision ruling that the foreseeable harm was depression and this was the cause of Mr Corr’s suicide. There was therefore no break in the chain of causation.

IBC Vehicles then themselves appealed. It submitted that Mr Corr’s suicide was an unreasonable, voluntary act that had broken the chain of causation.

The House of Lords dismissed the appeal and held that the employer was liable under the Fatal Accidents Act, even though Mr Corr’s death was self-inflicted.

The Lords held that to establish liability it was not necessary to be able to foresee the precise form that damage resulting from a breach of the duty of care might take and suicide could not be regarded as so unusual and unpredictable as to be outside what was reasonably foreseeable.

This decision could have serious implications for employers.

As well as ensuring that health and safety policies and procedures are in place to minimise the risk of injury to employees, employers should also have effective procedures for identifying and dealing with workplace stress and bullying.

Nick Gutteridge is head of personal injury at Burnetts. For further information or advice on industrial or head injuries, contact Nick on 01228 552222 or visit www.burnetts.co.uk