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06 November 2008
Issue: 7344 / Categories: Features , Personal injury
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The measure of injury

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Part one: an update on a recent cases in the law of psychiatric injury by Rehana Azib

The Court of Appeal revisited the issues of occupational stress particularly in the context of foreseeability of psychiatric harm and causation of a resulting psychiatric illness in the case of Dickins v O2 Plc [2008] EWCA Civ 1144, [2008] All ER (D) 154 (Oct).

Dickins had been employed by O2 for several years, initially as a secretary in 1991 and was eventually promoted to regulatory finance manager in 2001, a position for which, although she did not have any formal accountancy qualifications, she had been promised appropriate training and support. While the court acknowledged that Dickins had had a good work record, it had felt that she had been promoted to the very limit of her capability as a result of which, she had become extremely stressed and exhausted and eventually unable to work.

Unfortunately, Dickins did not receive help and soon came to the “end of her tether”. She asked to move to a less stressful job

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