Sadly bullying and harassment are still common occurrences in the workplace and can cause both physical and psychological damage to employees. Employers have a duty of care to look after the health, safety and welfare of their employees and should you have suffered bullying or harassment in the workplace, you may be entitled to make a claim.
Firstly, you need to prove that the actions complained of are catergorised as either bullying or harassment. Bullying in the workplace covers a multitude of situations such as being insulted, intimated or degraded by either a colleague or those in a position of power over you. Examples of situations of bullying concern such things as:
• Name calling;
• Threatening behaviour;
• Making threats about job security;
• Undermining a competent worker or denying opportunities;
• Unwelcome sexual advances.
In contrast to bullying, harassment has a precise legal definition stated in the Equality Act 2010 as ‘unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic, which has the purpose or effect of violating an individual’s dignity or creating and intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for that individual’. ‘Protected characteristics’ concern race, colour, ethnic or national origin, religious belief, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, age, or disability. In order to qualify as harassment you must show that the harassment occurred in the context of employment on at least two occasions.
Further to this, you must show that you have suffered a recognised psychiatric or physical injury as a result of experiencing bullying or harassment. It is often difficult to prove that the problems faced were caused a direct result of bullying or harassment at work and not due to other factors such as issues at home. As a result, in order to establish whether the bullying or harassment has led to an injury we would look to instruct a consultant psychiatrist.
Following this, it must be shown that your employers should have foreseen the risk of your suffering from mental illness as a result of bullying or harassment. In contrast, it must also be shown that had your employers have taken reasonable steps the injury would have been avoided.
Should your claim be successful you are entitled to claim for the mental anguish suffered, and financial losses caused as a result of your injury; this is likely to concern potential loss of earnings.
Should you be affected, please contact our specialist litigation team who deal with a number of bullying in the workplace claims and will be able to advise and assist with your potential claim.