Employers face rise in stress claims

Mark Taylor, a partner at the law firm Lovells in London, told a seminar this month: "It is remarkable how often stress-related illness comes out of the woodwork when disciplinary measures look likely against an employee."

He said increasing numbers of staff in the UK were complaining of stress. The trend was driven by a cultural change arriving from the US and by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which can lead to large pay-outs for unfair dismissal.

Firms attending Lovells' seminar this month included Merrill Lynch, UBS, Barclays Capital and Schroders.

Companies can be under a legal duty of care to an employee once they should reasonably be aware that they are suffering from stress. Maya Cronly-Dillon, a solicitor at Lovells, said: "Stress-related absence can turn into a recurring nightmare for employers."

Lovells said if a human resources manager had an unsubstantiated suspicion that an employee might be malingering, it might not be very clever to write it down. If they did an employee might have the right to see the note under the Data Protection Act 1998.

"The law allows staff to go on a fishing expedition," said a Lovells solicitor. They could then use any information gathered to threaten legal proceedings, if it seemed employers may have acted unreasonably or not followed correct procedures.

The law firm said employers should stay in touch with staff who were absent through stress to ensure they kept up to date about their condition. They should be wary of putting pressure on an employee to return to work before they were ready, and should assess their workload to ensure that it was reasonable.

Naomi Feinstein, a partner at Lovells, said employers needed to show they had a "sensitive side". For example, it might be risky to challenge a doctor's sick note for stress in the early stages, because an employment tribunal might later see this as evidence of an uncaring attitude.

In one case that reached a tribunal, an employee had written an e-mail to his boss saying "I NEED SOME HELP". The boss ignored it. "I would not recommend such an attitude," said the Lovells solicitor.

Another said that staff who consulted lawyers seemed to cite stress more often than those who did not. "It can be useful in negotiating a settlement when someone is leaving a firm, anyway," she said.