It may be obvious that you spend most of your time at your workplace performing your designated duties. However, you may not realize that the long working hours, sometimes unrealistic client demands, deadlines, targets and certain workplace cultures cause workplace stress. The Health and Safety Authority defines workplace stress as stress that is caused or worsened by work. It mainly results from having an imbalance between work demands, the working environment and an employee’s capacity to meet work/ employer demands.

Workplace stress impacts employees’ health negatively and sometimes causes serious illnesses. Hence, the need to file for personal injury claims. The stress can manifest through psychological symptoms like nervousness, anxiousness, having racing thoughts, fear, feeling low and upset. It can also cause physical symptoms like stomach issues, heart palpitations, poor sleeping patterns and raised blood pressure. These are just a few common workplace stress symptoms that can cause serious or permanent health damages if ignored.

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Under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, employers are mandated to protect employees by ensuring their safety, health and welfare at workplaces. This gives employees the right to sue employers for personal injuries with the help of employment law solicitors Dublin in the event where avoidable workplace stress causes injuries. However, personal injury claims arising from workplace stress are never straight forward. Before taking up a personal injuries case, employment law solicitors must ensure the following;

  1. There is a health injury. This can be a physical injury or psychiatric injury. Therefore, the prognosis for a health injury resulting from workplace stress can only be made by a specialist medical practitioner like a psychiatrist.
  2. The health injury must be directly attributed to workplace stress. This may be caused by excessive workplace demands, long working hours, unrealistic deadlines and targets that overwhelm an employee. Only specialist medical practitioners can determine the causation of an injury to determine whether it is related to workplace stress.
  3. The resulting workplace stress should be wrong and actionable in law. The employee must prove that there was breach of duty or negligence from the employer. Note that, the court adopts an objective test to determine whether an employer’s behaviour towards an employee was wrong and actionable in law. For instance, the court would seek to determine whether a reasonable person can deem the employer’s behaviour as wrong and actionable in law. This means that, the court evaluates the actions of both the employer and employee to determine the cumulative effect.

Therefore, before claiming personal injuries due to workplace stress, our employment law  Dublin must establish that in all workplace circumstances, the employer should have foreseen that employees may get harmed either physically or psychologically while at work. This forms the basis for a strong case.

Summary

Good employment law solicitors Dublin will examine an employees’ current situation and consider advice from medical practitioners before initiating a workplace personal injuries claim. This is because, they are difficult and costly cases that do not always guarantee success.

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