Employer Liability Essay Example

Introduction

A duty of care, in tort law, refers to a legal compulsion which is imposed on a person requiring devotion to a standard of reasonable care while conducting any acts that could foreseeably hurt others. It is the first constituent that must be established to continue with conduct or action in negligence. Employers are obliged to ensure the safety of the employees as well as working environments and in case a worker ends up suffering stress or mental illness as a result of the pressure in a workplace, the employer will be liable or answerable. The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the liability of employers critically concerning employees who have suffered sickness due to workplace stress by relating to the common law duty of care. Besides, the paper discusses whether the intrinsically stressful nature of some jobs makes a difference to employer liability for workplace stress.

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Employer Liability In Relation To Duty of Care

This matter, on a general level, will often relate to care for the workers' health and safety for the manager's common law duty of care is one of the foundations of the regulation pertaining to the repayment of a wounded employee (Barrett, 2005, np). However, the law has four precise applications which are significant as well in mainstream employment rule.

To begin with, one of the customarily acknowledged aspects of this overall duty is that the employer is obliged to provide competent and safe working environment for the employees, for instance, to safeguard the workers from practical jokers (Butler, 2018, np). One effect of this application is that there may exist an affirmative common law obligation upon the manager to get rid of a potentially dangerous employee and this ought to be a reasonable defence to an accusation of unfair dismissal by the worker, as long as the necessary steps are followed in effecting the sack.

Additionally, the general duty of care may be interpreted as involving a responsibility upon the employer to pay attention to the claims or complaints made by an employee that a specific appliance or technique is not safe and to take necessary corrective measures and reasonably deal with issues of safety. If the manager fails to do so, not only can the worker have a right to walk out and claim, for unfair dismissal, to have been effectively dismissed, but also that the sack may well be unfair automatically.

Besides, the third application is that the employer could be under a responsibility to cover the employee against expenses necessarily incurred in the course of their employment, which could involve the cost of defending court proceedings, except for the cases where the mistake was purely of the worker and only collateral to carrying out his or her duties (Little et al., 2015, p469). Nonetheless, there is no implied duty to insure the activities of an employee to any higher level than is recommended or needed by the law.

Moreover, another application implies that the specialized duty of care will generally not expand to a duty to take care of the belongings of the employee. Any potential accountability for loss of the goods of a worker would have to crop up on ordinary principles of tort in cases where there was evidence of certain nearness between the exacting employer and employee, and not just on the employment connection, or probably under the workplace rules 1992, in which regulation 23 provides for appropriate and adequate accommodation for clothing not worn during hours of work.

Furthermore, apart from the longstanding applications of the general implied duty on the manager to practice care, two sections of substantial modern concern have developed this duty much further than its fundamentals in physical injuries to the worker in a workplace accident. These include the expanding law connecting to workplace stress-induced injuries, which is still in no small extent a health and safety concern, but extending beyond liabilities regarding traditional accidents, and the probable responsibility for a negligently written reference and this one extends the duty into the worker's or ex-worker's future fiscal interests (Painter and Holmes, 2015, np). It is, therefore, crucial for an employer to ensure safety and healthy standards of the employees and take action whenever complaints are made since he or she is liable to any illness or problem that befalls the employee caused by workplace stress.

Does the inherently stressful nature of some jobs (e.g. paramedic) make a difference to employer liability for workplace stress?

Several jobs are naturally stressful, but this aspect does not mean that the employer liability changes. The employers still are responsible for the wellbeing of the employees and need to ensure that the working conditions are improved to reduce the stressful nature of these jobs (Barrett, 2005, np). Work-related stress can be defined as the adverse reaction individuals have to extreme pressures or other demand types placed on them. If an employee experiences this condition, then the employer can be charged with the following offences:

• Criminally: creating the risk of personal injury. This aspect is found under the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974.
• Civilly: the defendant can be charged with causing anxiety Under the Protection from Harassment Act of 1997, for violation of contract, and negligence having resulted in personal injury.

Mr Walker who was employed as an area social service officer by the council is an example of a case where the nature of the job can be stressful (Painter and Holmes, 2015, np). The volume of work handled by his team kept increasing while the workforce remained constant. From 1985, Mr Walker and others gave reports concerning the issue and the following year he had a nervous breakdown. He then discussed his problem with Mr Davidson who promised to provide him with an assistant before returning to work. Nevertheless, the assistance was withdrawn after a month, and in 1987 he suffered another mental breakdown and later dismissed in February 1987 for permanent ill health (Painter and Holmes, 2015, np). The employers were found to have breached the duty of care. This example shows that employers are liable for the illness of employees in naturally stressful kind of jobs.

Conclusion

The common law duty of care concerns the health and safety of employees. Concerning the law, employers are held responsible for any stress-related illnesses in the workplace. The various applications of the common law duty of care disused show how it helps ensure good health as well as safe conditions for workers. Besides, the managers should follow these regulations, and if a breach occurs, they are charged for the breach.

Moreover, some jobs are inherently stressful, and that does not mean the employers are not liable. They ought to ensure working conditions are improved and take correctional measures when complaints are made. Failure to do so, they will as well be charged for neglecting their duties and not following the law.

Reference Lists

Barrett, B., 2005. Liability for stress related injury.

Butler, D., 2018. Employer liability for workplace Trauma. Routledge..

Little, D.M., Cook, A.J., Morissette, S.B. and Klocek, J.W., 2015. Considerations for return to work following traumatic brain injury. In Handbook of clinical neurology (Vol. 131, pp. 465-479). Elsevier.

Painter, R. and Holmes, A., 2015. Cases and materials on employment law. Oxford University Press, USA.