A corporate employer cannot be found to owe a duty of care with respect to mental harm by aggregating the knowledge of multiple non-supervisory employees, none of whom individually possessed sufficient knowledge to satisfy the foreseeability requirement in s 32 of the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW). Where no individual employee owed a duty of care with respect to mental harm, the employer cannot be vicariously liable. The foreseeability inquiry under s 32 requires that the specific type of harm — a recognised psychiatric illness — be reasonably foreseeable, not merely that some form of physical injury might occur.
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