An employee's expressions of feeling stressed, unsupported, lonely, or lacking confidence during a performance management process addressing legitimate competency concerns do not, without more, constitute signs making psychiatric injury reasonably foreseeable so as to engage an employer's duty of care to avoid psychiatric injury. An employer responding to competency concerns through performance improvement plans, supervised work, further education, and counselling referrals takes reasonable precautions consistent with its paramount duty to protect patient health. A trial judge has inherent power, reinforced by r 367(1) UCPR (Qld), to require provision of particulars of the court's own volition prior to trial.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 8 later cases that cite this judgment.
3 of the 8 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.