Employment Tribunal or Personal Injury Claim?
According to statistics we have researched, in 2015, as many as one in three employees felt that they had been bullied in the workplace and 21% of employees had seen colleagues being bullied.
The problem is huge and causes massive disruption to the workplace and significant stress to victims of bullying. Bullying and harassment are often referred to together although, strictly, “bullying” is not against the law. Harassment however is. The Equality Act 2010 confirms that harassment is “unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic, which has the purpose or effect of violating an individual’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for that individual”, and applies to “age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation”. Your employer is responsible for your health and welfare within the workplace and this includes the prevention of harassment to employees. If they fail in that duty, the victim of the harassment can, unfortunately, find themselves undergoing significant stress at work.
The solution may seem obvious in that a victim of harassment can bring a claim against the employer at the Employment Tribunal. However, before proceeding on that basis, you should be aware that, if you bring a claim to the Employment Tribunal which results in a Judgement (whether successful or not), you will be prevented from subsequently bringing a personal injury claim in respect of the stress at work.
Employment Tribunals do have jurisdiction to award damages for personal injuries as part of the claim made to the Tribunal. However, if the claim made to the Employment Tribunal includes a claim in respect of those personal injuries, and the Employment Tribunal claim fails, for any reason, you are then legally prevented from pursuing the separate personal injury claim.
In the circumstances, before considering pursuing a claim to the Employment Tribunal, where you have been the victim of actions which have resulted in your suffering stress at work, we would strongly recommend that you consult a specialist Personal Injury Solicitor in respect of that element of your claim. You can of course also instruct a Solicitor in respect of the Employment Claim but you should consider whether there is a personal injury element to your claim and contact one of our Specialist Solicitors. We would then contact your Employment Law Solicitors and ask them to ensure that any claim made to the Employment Tribunal does not seek damages upon your behalf in respect of the personal injury element. That way, if your Employment Tribunal claim fails, you could still potentially recover damages in respect of the stress at work you have suffered.
If you have Employment Tribunal claim ongoing and/or believe that you have suffered from stress at work as a result of the matters complained of, please feel free to call our Personal Injury Specialists on 02920 470909 our team at Martyn Prowel Solicitors will be happy to advise you.
If you consider that you, or a colleague, are being bullied or harassed at work, and you need advice or support, contact Bullies Out on 02920 492 169 or via their website https://bulliesout.com/.