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New Claim For Employees Bullied Or Harassed At Work
Added: (Mon Jun 27 2005)
Until recently it was generally assumed that if an employee is harassed at work, unless the harassment is on grounds of sex or, race discrimination (etc), the normal remedy is to resign and claim constructive unfair dismissal (or exceptionally claim personal/psychological injury).
That assumption deserves a second look in the light of the Court of Appeal decision in Majrowski v Guy's & St Thomas's NHS Trust earlier this year. In that case the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, enacted to crack down on stalkers, was used to claim compensation from the Trust for the bullying and intimidation of a colleague at work.
The Court of Appeal held that employees can use the Act to claim damages from his employer if a colleague bullied or harassed him. The employer is 'vicariously' liable for the employee’s actions under the Act. This therefore gives him a potential remedy even when there was no statutory discrimination (or psychological injury with its strict test of foreseeability), and for whatever reason he does not wish to claim constructive unfair dismissal.
Further guidance has now been given in the case of Banks v Ablex Ltd in which a woman who alleged she had been shouted and sworn at by a male colleague made an unsuccessful claim under the Protection from Harassment Act.
In Banks, the Court of Appeal emphasized that to contravene the Act, there must be a course of intentional conduct which amounts to harassment. Misconduct on one occasion only is not sufficient. There must be a course of conduct extending over two or more occasions.
Unfortunately for Ms Banks, she’d only been sworn and shouted at on one occasion!