Negligence - employment - bullying - causation - depression - duty of care - employers' duties - foreseeability - mental disorder - place of work - police - vicarious liability


Clark v Chief Constable of Essex: QBD (Mr Justice Tugendhat):

18 September 2006



The claimant, a former police officer (C), claimed damages for personal injuries allegedly occasioned by the actions of police officers employed by the defendant chief constable (D).



C had, as a detective constable, been the officer in charge of a major police investigation, and had held the status of acting sergeant. In the course of the investigation, C complained to senior officers of the conduct of a senior police officer involved (K) and of K's being oppressive to C. Thereafter, C and K made a number of complaints about each other.



K then became C's line manager. A subsequent meeting involving senior police officers led, essentially, to C losing his rank of detective constable. As the trial arising from the police investigation began, a certain senior police officer (B) to whom C had made complaints about K threatened C, advising him that K and another were considering an action for slander against C, depending on what C said at the trial.



C then retired from active service on medical grounds suffering from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and related physical symptoms, including shingles. He brought a claim against D for personal injuries, alleging that they had been caused by the negligence of D or by harassment, bullying and victimisation of C by his immediately senior officers for which D was vicariously liable.



C contended that: D owed him a duty to provide a safe place of work and to protect him from bullying, victimisation and intimidation at work, including by work colleagues; certain police officers had subjected him to bullying, harassment, intimidation, oppression and victimisation at work; and they had deliberately acted in the course of their employment so as to punish him for his role in the police investigation. C argued that D should have brought the police officers' conduct to an end in response to complaints by C. C further contended that the meeting of senior officers was an unlawful disciplinary hearing, so that he had been unlawfully disciplined.



Held, where a claim in negligence against a defendant was based on the principle of vicarious liability for the acts and omissions of a defendant's employees and on alleged breaches of duties of care and other duties owed by a defendant to a claimant, and where, in that claim, it was alleged that those for whom the defendant was vicariously liable had deliberately bullied or victimised the claimant but had unintentionally inflicted psychological injury on the claimant, it was necessary to the success of the claim that the injury should have been foreseeable. What was foreseeable depended on the facts of the individual case (Waters v Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police (2001) PIQR P81 considered and Sutherland v Hatton (2002) EWCA Civ 76, (2002) PIQR P241 applied).



On the evidence, D was liable in negligence for the personal injuries caused to C, whose senior officers all knew that he was unable to cope with the treatment he was receiving from K and B. The actions of K towards C, namely, humiliation, criticism and shouting, were properly to be regarded as bullying. Moreover, C had been unlawfully disciplined and had suffered foreseeable physical and mental injury as a result.



Furthermore, the actions of B towards C had caused C severe stress and distress, and it had been foreseeable that those actions would cause both physical and mental injury. C's personal injuries could be described as falling within the range of moderately severe, and an award of £18,000 in respect of general damages was appropriate.



Judgment for the claimant.



Julian Waters (instructed by Jeffries) for the claimant; John Norman (instructed by Barlow, Lyde & Gilbert) for the defendant. See (2006) Gazette, 28 September, 5.