Law Question Please I Need Help !!

[Riyad]

Freda is employed as a legal advisor with HR Answers to provide employment advice and training. She has been employed with them for 4 years. She coped well until she was promoted a year and a half ago. She is now in charge of a team of 10 people all of whom are quite rude and aggressive and unwilling to work hard. Freda went off sick for a week with what her doctor described as work related stress. She told her manager it was the flu but at the same time she told him that she was finding it difficult to deal with the staff and their bullying behaviour towards her. A year ago she was signed off sick for a month with work related depression and this time she told her employer what she was suffering from. When she came back to work nothing was done to help her and her manager told her to pull herself together. He also gave her a leaflet with the number of the employer’s telephone counselling service on it. She has not used that service. She has now suffered a relapse and signed off sick for the next three months with work related depression. She does not want to resign but does want her employer to compensate her for the injury she has suffered.

Referring to appropriate legal authority, advise Freda

[factor-fiction]

Does Freda want this compensation in addition to receiving full pay during her absence?

[Maydup]

Freda needs to consider her ability or desire to manage a team. If she would like to keep the job, but is feeling unsupported by her employer, she should ask for a meeting and request some management training. Its often the case that a good worker is promoted to a management role after a period of time, but is not equipped with the skills to do it.

Has Freda had an appraisal recently? If not she might suggest she has one.

Otherwise perhaps she'd prefer to request a reshuffle and a see if she can change back to her original role.

There are ways through this which should work for both parties, but at the moment there is no plan except unhappiness. I don't think its a grievance situation but if Freda disagrees a nd thinks it is, then she should submit one in writing with a specific complaint.

[woofgang]

do we also think that freda should be doing her own coursework research?

[Peter Pedant]

OK Riyad - I've got a bit like this on EU law - ugh !

OK - it is not an employment law question but is dressed up like one.

It is more like contract and what used to be called nervous damage now psychiatric injury.

First case - after all you did say Legal Auth - Wilkinson v Downton
establishes the tort of direct psych dge.

Bourhill v Young 1942 involves negligence

The rights of workers to be in an environment that does drive them mad is the first hillsborough case - The one if involving police and a chief constable

on the grounds that if you cant cite a relevant case, cite an irrelevant case and say why it is irrelevant - mention the second hillsborough case - where the parents of the dead who were present did recover damages and but those who saw on tel didnt even tho they suffered the same damage ( too remote and not an issue here ) .

and finally isnt majewski v Guys about harassment ?

well that is five cases to be getting on with.

[boxtops]

I don't see what compensation she could claim, since she doesn't feel she's being squeezed out of the job.... it could also be argued that since she's not availed herself of the company's helpline for counselling, she's not been trying to help herself.

I'm not clear why she was promoted (nor perhaps why she applied for a job in a team of people as you describe). It may be a question of her capability to manage under those circumstances - it sounds to me as if she's a square peg in a round hole.