V1.01

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In an action before Judge Byrt QC sitting in the Mayor's & City of London Court, the plaintiff and other keyboard operators employed by the defendant bank sought damages for personal injury. The plaintiffs alleged that the bank had been in breach of its statutory duty to keyboard operators and the working regime and conditions had led to WRULD/RSI type injuries. The bank denied a breach of duty and that the plaintiffs had sustained any injury and in the alternative argued that any injuries that they might have were not the result of their employment. The plaintiffs were employed from 1989 or 1990 onwards at a document processing centre at Frimley. They were required to enter the details of cheques and vouchers into the main computer. It was a process known as encoding. It required very high accuracy on each of the 90 machines. As the bank sought greater efficiency it looked for ever higher encoding speeds from its employees. The processors, mainly women, were organised into teams and there was competition between them. At one stage there was greater pressure as redundancies were made on the basis of the slower operators being taken first. The plaintiffs alleged that the ergonomics of the workstations were unsound. As a result, they suffered musculo-skeletal pains which became worse with time. The plaintiffs claimed that the bank had been slow to consider the risks of work related upper limb disorders. This was despite the bank settling a claim by a Mrs Burnard out of court for £45,000 in 1989 for an RSI resulting from typewriting at a bank branch. Between 1990 and 1992, plaintiffs claimed that the bank ignored requests for better ergonomics including foot rests and was mainly concerned with increasing productivity. Breaks were cut and pressures increased. The bank denied that these pressures had led to any injury and pointed to national agreements and a lack of knowledge of the risks. It alleged the injuries were psychogenic.

HELD: (1) In a 66-page judgment, the judge concluded that work in the encoding room at Frimley was an intense, tense, high pressure occupation which, depending on the individual's temperament and reaction to pressure, placed some, including the plaintiffs, under considerable physical and mental strain. Management saw it as their job to get the maximum productivity out of their team using a bracing style of leadership. (2) As a result, management did push some encoders beyond the limits of their natural capabilities and these included the plaintiffs. (3) The lack of foot rests was a factor in the overall ergonomics being poor and was a breach of the bank's statutory duty and/or its common law duty of care. But save that this failure demonstrated the bank's attitude to its employees, there was no evidence that the lack of foot rests contributed materially to the upper limb disorders of the plaintiffs. (4) The combination of other poor ergonomics, especially the fixed position of the keyboard, and the regime, did lead to physical injury. In pressing the plaintiffs to work at the pace and under the pressures that they did, and in failing to provide them with adequate work breaks, the bank knew or ought reasonably to have known that it was inviting risk of injury. (5) The physical injuries sustained by the plaintiffs were genuine. They were not psychogenic in origin. (6) It was clear that in the relevant period, not only through Mrs Burnard's case but also through the published literature and guidance, the bank was or ought to have been, aware of the risks of RSI/WRULD. It was fixed with knowledge. The bank was accordingly in breach of its duty of care to the plaintiffs and liable in damages. (7) Each plaintiff was awarded £7,000 general damages for pain suffering and loss of amenity (PSLA). Various sums were awarded to each plaintiff for special damages.

Judgment accordingly. Time for appeal extended.