Swinging the lead or not, that is the question, whether tis…
by Philip
The facts of this case are a common workplace occurrence ( not at PJH Law I might add).An employee asks for something at work, gets knocked back by her manager, walks off the job in “a fit of pique” then submits a sick note from her GP for stress.
The employer in this case here had a discretionary sick pay scheme where sick pay was not payable where there was some doubt about the genuiness of the illness.
The ET and the EAT said that the employer was not entitled to withhold sick pay as the GP certificate certifying stress meant that there was no doubt about the genuiness of the illness, and therefore the employer was not entitled to withhold sick pay.
I cannot imagine there are too many HR practitioners nodding their head in agreement at this decision, but there we are.
Had the employer had other medical evidence indicating there was doubt about the genuiness of the stress then the employer would have been entitled not to pay the sick pay.
That’s quite enough double negatives for a Friday afternoon, have a great weekend.
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Never suffered from stress have we then.
Gary said at November 22nd, 2007 at 6:23 am
As someone who with a history of depression, which I am currently self-managing, I find this message disheartening. Often when people walk in ‘a fit of pique’ there has been a history, often with the person suffering prolonged stress. People with depression don’t often recognise it in themselves. Employers and managers need to have depression awareness training and informnation on how to develop a mentally healthy workplace. Perhaps then we wouldn’t be reading such messages. After all, mental illness is not a lifestyle choice. If one in five people have depression at sometime in their life, you can bet there are a lot in the workplace, afraid to own up because of the associated stigma.
Jacqui Rafferty said at March 31st, 2008 at 9:50 am
It’s a difficult one. We see both sides-employer and employee. Sometimes those perspectives are the same, other times they are poles apart.
What can’t be disputed is that some employees do play the stress card too easily on the one hand, on the other hand some employers should be more sympathetic to genuine cases of stress.
Philip said at March 31st, 2008 at 9:57 am