Law firm urges employers to defend stress claims

Too many defendants settle stress claims out of court rather than defend them, law firm Halliwell Landau has said.

The firm's insurance litigation department has successfully defended its last five stress claims. It won on the basis that there was insufficient evidence to show that employers could reasonably have known that the work patterns of their employees were likely to cause them stress.

Insurance litigation partner Stewart Harper said: "There seems to be an impression - largely fuelled by the national press - that claimants can easily succeed against their employers once they have shown that they had to give up work due to mental illness. This is simply not true."

He added that claimants were required to show that defendants had actual knowledge, or should have realised, that the working conditions were such that the claimant could not cope.

Harper said: "The courts are taking a realistic view - they accept that the workplace can be stressful and that some employees cannot cope, but they also accept that this does not necessarily make the employer negligent.

"They're giving employers the green light to defend appropriate claims."