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This video goes in-depth into the element of wrongful conduct. This video helps explain and give examples of wrongful acts. I chose this video as it is important to know what a wrongful act is and what is recognized by the court.

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There are many types of torts. In the picture above, we can see torts being split into 3 categories, namely intentional torts, unintentional torts, and strict liability torts. These torts are separated due to the causes of the wrongful act (one of the 3 elements) as some may cause harm intentionally, some may do so unintentionally, or due to their carelessness or negligence, or even due to the strict liability associated with certain products and circumstances. Overall, this picture can help in showing others what types of causes a tort can arise from.

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I chose this picture to show what is needed in creating a tort. First, there must be wrongful conduct which was illustrated when the man forcefully took the chair from the unsuspecting woman. Then there must be harm done to the other party. In this case, the harm would be the physical injury of the woman due to falling on the ground. Lastly, there must also be a cause and due to the limited information, it could be seen that the man chose to intentionally pull the chair to cause harm out of his own self-interest. In this case, the woman would be able to go forward with a tort lawsuit as all the elements of a tort can be seen in her case.

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I chose this picture to indicate the importance of harm in tort law. If there is no harm or damage to another party, then there would be no tort lawsuit. There may be instances where an individual may intentional try to harm another and there may be a cause but a person cannot sue or create a tort lawsuit if they did not cause any harm to that person.

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This website article offers some of the most famous tort cases. These cases have become the principal cases used in a lot of other torts. I chose this article as most of the cases involved were very interesting and brought about a lot of public interest. This relates to the elements of torts as all cases involved describe the elements of their cases and list all information needed for a tort case to proceed.

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5 Famous Tort Cases That Blew the Public’s Mind - In NewsWeekly

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These famous tort cases stick in your mind long after your hear the story. Learn about outlandish tort cases and settlements here.

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This video explains the origin of tort law and provides viewers with a deeper understanding of which cases are torts and which are not. This relates to the elements of a tort as cases that do not possess the common elements such as harm or wrongful conduct would be considered something else depending on the scenario and circumstances.

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Center for Innovation in Legal Education

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Episode 1.1: What is Torts? And what Torts is not.

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This video describes the basics of what makes up torts. This video is used to provide viewers with the basic knowledge to understand what a tort is and what determines if a tort lawsuit is possible. This relates to my topic as it gives viewers the chance to learn a little more about law and the necessary knowledge to possibly use or defend oneself against a tort.

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Understand Tort Law in 17 Minutes (Part III)

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This webpage from CanLII provides information on all types of tort cases in Canada as well as their summaries and verdicts as well. When looking into the elements of a tort, one can use this webpage to see how elements in a tort can differ from case to case and see how these elements were used in deciding the verdict for the cases themselves. As such if one would like to find more information about torts or their elements, this webpage would be a perfect place to visit.

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1.1.2 Further material | Tort Law: Cases and Commentaries | CanLII

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What Types of Harm Are Involved In Torts?

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What Types of Harm Are Involved In Torts?

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This article talks about the different types of harm that the courts consider when dealing with tort cases. To further develop this concept of the elements of a tort, we can look at the types of harm that are used in torts. Through this article, we can find that harm can be defined as physical harm or psychiatric harm. In some cases, one could make a tort lawsuit based on economic harm or loss of income depending on the circumstances.

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151

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Types of harm

In the majority of employers' liability cases, the harm complained of will be some kind of physical injury or illness and it is clear that employers have a duty to take precautions to prevent this. However, employers also have a duty not to cause psychiatric injury to their employees and, to a much more limited extent, not to cause them economic loss.

●Psychiatric injury

The employer's duty of care to employees can include a duty not to cause

Types of harm

get help with her workload; she had suffered periods of illness during her employment, which might have alerted her employers to a problem, but the court held that these were readily attributable to 'causes other than stress at work', and so did not put the school on notice that she was struggling to cope. Mr Barber only complained about his workload once, and that was just at the end of the summer term, so, the court held, his employers were entitled to think that after the school summer holidays he would be rested, so it was not foreseeable that if they failed to give him any help when he returned in September, psychiatric injury might result. Both these claims were therefore rejected. The only one of the four claims that was accepted - and that rather reluctantly - was that of Ms Jones. The difference in her case was that she had complained about her work- load from an early stage, and the court accepted 'with some hesitation' that she had done enough to make it foreseeable that, if she was not given some assistance, she might suffer psychiatric injury.

The judgment in the case laid down a number of principles to be applied to workplace stress cases. It said that there are no special control mechanisms applying to claims for psychiatric illnesses arising from doing the work that the employee is required to do. The test is the normal one for employers' liability: was the kind of harm suffered reasonably foreseeable? The answer in each case would depend on what the employer knew (or reasonably ought to know) about the individual employee.

The court pointed out that the potential for psychiatric injury may be harder to fore- see than that of physical injury. An employer would usually be entitled to assume that an employee can withstand the normal pressures of the job, unless they are aware of some special vulnerability.

A number of facts would need to be considered when deciding whether the injury was foreseeable. With regard to the job itself, important questions would include:

● whether the workload was much more than would normally be expected in that job;

● whether the demands made on that employee were unreasonable compared with those made on others in comparable jobs; and

● whether there were signs that others doing that job were suffering from stress, such as an abnormal level of staff sickness in that department.

Courts would also need to look at employees:

● did they have a particular vulnerability, or previous sickness resulting from stress at work?

● had they been off sick to an uncharacteristic degree?

● had they or others warned the employer of a potential problem?

The court stated that an employer was entitled to take what they were told by an employee at face value, unless there was good reason not to, and if the employee said they were coping, there was no duty on the employer to make sure that was true.

As in all employers' liability cases, the employer is only expected to take such steps to prevent psychiatric harm as are reasonable in all the circumstances, bearing in mind the size and seriousness of the risk, the costs and practicability of preventing it, and the justifications for running that risk. The size and resources of the firm will have a bearing on that, as will the need to treat other employees fairly, for example in redistributing

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duties. The court specified that an employer who offers a confidential advice service, with referral to appropriate counselling services, will in most cases be deemed to have taken reasonable steps to prevent psychiatric injury. An employer is only expected to take steps which are likely to do some good, and if the only reasonable and effective precaution would be to sack or demote the employee, an employer will not be in breach of duty if they fail to do that because the employee does not wish it.

These strictures will clearly make it difficult for claimants now to succeed, but the court went further. Where a claimant could prove that the employer's breach of duty had materially contributed to their psychiatric injury, but there were also other causes for that injury (such as, for example, a marriage break-up), then 'a sensible attempt should be made to apportion liability accordingly'. Similarly, if the breach of duty has made an existing vulnerability or mental injury worse, rather than caused it in the first place, the employer is only liable for the increase in the problem, and not the whole of the damage.

The rules laid down in Hatton v Sutherland were considered by the House of Lords in Barber v Somerset County Council (2004), which was an appeal by the Mr Barber referred to above. He had won his case at first instance, and the House of Lords reinstated his victory. The issue in question was whether the school had had a duty to spot the prob- lems that Mr Barber was having and do something about them, or whether they only had such a duty if he drew the problems to their attention. The Court of Appeal's view, as stated above, was that employers were entitled to assume an employee was up to the job, unless there was something about the job or the employee that might suggest a risk of increased stress. Even in that case, the employer only had to be aware of the risk, and was not obliged to make 'searching or intrusive enquiries'.

The House of Lords confirmed that this was 'useful practical guidance', but said it should not be seen as a strict and inflexible rule - the real test was simply whether the employer had acted reasonably in the light of what they knew or ought to know, and had weighed up the risk of the injury, and the probable effectiveness, cost and inconven- ience of any precautions that could be taken. In this case, the very fact that an obviously dedicated and hard-working teacher had on three occasions taken time off because of stress meant the school should have realised there was a problem, and should have taken steps to help Mr Barber cope with the pressures of the job. The case by no means can- cels out the strict limitations placed on workplace stress claims in Hatton - in fact the House of Lords broadly supported the approach taken in the Court of Appeal - but it does confirm the principle that there will be situations where an employer has a duty to notice a problem without necessarily having it pointed out by the employee, and to take positive steps to prevent workplace stress from developing into a full-blown psychiatric illness.

In Hartman v South Essex Mental Health and Community Care NHS Trust (2005), the Court of Appeal reiterated that the basic test was whether psychiatric injury was rea- sonably foreseeable, and that the factors mentioned in Hatton were intended to be guidelines, not a comprehensive checklist. Like Barber, the decision considered a num- ber of different cases at once, some of which shed further useful light on the way in which the Hatton principles are applied in different factual situations. In the case of Ms Hartman, when she applied for her job she had told her employer's occupational health

Types of harm

department that she had high blood pressure, had taken anti-depressants and had an anxiety attack in the past. She argued that this meant her employers should have fore- seen that the pressures of her job might lead to psychiatric injury in someone with such a medical history. However, information provided to the occupational health staff was confidential, and so was not passed on to her managers. As a result, it was not possible for that information to make her psychiatric injury foreseeable, and so her claim failed. By contrast, in the case of one of the other claimants, Mrs Wheeldon, it was clear from the evidence that not only was psychiatric injury reasonably foreseeable in the circum- stances, but also the employer had actually foreseen it, and yet had failed to take the medical advice of its own experts. If the employer had acted on that advice, the court found that Mrs Wheeldon's condition would never have got to the stage where she could no longer do her job, and so the employer was liable.

In Hatton, the House of Lords said that employers who provided a counselling serv- ice would usually be considered to have taken reasonable steps to protect employeesfrom excessive stress. In Daw v Intel Corporation (2007), the Court of Appeal emphas- ised that this still allowed room for cases where providing counselling would not be enough. Ms Daw worked for the defendants for many years, and was highly thought of, and considered to be a hard worker. Over the years, however, her workload became heavier and heavier, in part because she worked for several different bosses at once, all making conflicting demands on her time. By 2001, she was having to work excessive hours to get the job done, and had told her bosses about the problem at least 14 times. After sending a detailed e-mail about the problem, she was promised help with her work, but this was not provided; shortly afterwards, she suffered a breakdown and chronic depression, and became unable to work at all. The defendants had a confidential coun- selling service for employees, which they claimed meant they had taken reasonable steps to carry out their duty of care regarding workplace stress. The Court of Appeal rejected this argument, stating that, in this case, the counselling service would not have been able to help, as the problem arose from Ms Daw's workload. It upheld the trial judge's find- ing that in order to fulfil their duty of care, Intel should have taken urgent action to deal with the problem when they received Ms Daw's memo in 2001, at the latest.

Interestingly, a recent case has revealed a way in which employees who are caused stress at work may be able to avoid the restrictions described above, at least in some cir- cumstances. In Majrowski v Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Trust (2006), the claimant said he had been bullied by his department manager, and that the manager's behaviour amounted to harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (see p. 331). He sued the NHS Trust on the basis that it was vicariously liable for the manager's beha- viour. At first instance, the judge struck out the claim, stating that the Act was designed primarily to punish those who committed harassment, and so vicarious liability could not apply. The House of Lords, however, ruled that there was nothing in the legislation to say this, and that it was therefore possible for an employer to be vicariously liable for harass- ment by an employee. This has important implications for stress at work cases, not least because the Act does not require claimants to have suffered a recognised psychiatric illness, so employees who could not claim under the normal principles of employers' liability may be able to sue under the Act, if they can show that another employee has subjected them to a course of conduct which amounts to harassment. It would not,

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however, be of use where the complaint concerns too heavy a workload, or general work- place stress.

●Psychiatric injury at work and secondary victims

The cases referred to above all feature stress caused directly by pressure of work, but there is another set of cases concerning psychiatric injury caused by workplace activities, which is treated differently. These are the so-called 'secondary victims', who suffer psy- chiatric injury because of witnessing horrific injury to others, such as members of the emergency services who attend terrible accidents. These cases are discussed fully in the chapter on negligence, on p. 52 above, but essentially the principle is that employees cannot sue employers for psychiatric injury caused in this way, unless they themselves were in danger of physical injury, or had a close relationship with the actual victims of the accident.

If employees are themselves at risk of reasonably foreseeable physical injury, however, the employer will be liable for any psychiatric injury caused by that risk, as well as any physical injury, under the normal principles of causation explained on p. 99. This was confirmed in Simmons v British Steel plc (2004), the case discussed on p. 43, where an employee's anger at an accident which caused him a head injury led to a severe skin dis- ease, and the stress of that eventually resulted in a severe depressive illness. The House of Lords held that his employer was liable for the mental illness, even though only the physical injury (the head injury) could have been foreseen.

In Donachie v Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police (2004), the claimant was a police officer who had had to attach a tagging device to a car used by a danger- ous criminal gang, while the gang members were in a nearby pub. The situation was clearly stressful in itself, but was made much more so by the fact that the equipment sup- plied was defective, and the police officer had to go back, crawl under the car and re- attach the device eight times, because the batteries kept turning out to be faulty. Not surprisingly, he became increasingly frightened, and two days later, he had a stroke, which medical evidence suggested was a result of the stress. His employers had argued that, under the principles set down in Hatton, they were not liable because they had no reason to believe that he was particularly vulnerable to stress or likely to suffer a stroke. The Court of Appeal held that the Hatton test did not apply here, because it was reason- ably foreseeable that the claimant might suffer physical injury, and the employer was therefore liable for any physical or psychiatric injury arising from that risk.

●Economic loss

The courts have also stated that, in exceptional cases, employers may have a duty not to cause economic loss to employees. This was the case in Spring v Guardian Assurance

plc (1995), where an employer was successfully sued for negligence after giving a bad

reference, and in Scally v Southern Health and Social Services Board (1992), where the employer was found negligent in failing to advise the employee that he was entitled toexercise valuable pension options. However, it was made clear in Crossley v Faithfull and

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3Types of harm - [Catherine Elliott, Frances Quinn] Tort Law (the E(Bookos.org)

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151 In the majority of employers' liability cases, the harm complained of will be some kind of physical injury or illness and it is clear that employers have a duty to take precautions to prevent this. However, employers also have a duty not to cause psychiatric injury to their employees and, to a much more limited extent, not to cause them economic loss.