V1.01

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The trial judge had correctly found that high pressure work on batch processing keyboards for a bank caused physical injuries to the various claimants, the risk of which the bank had ample knowledge.

Defendant bank's appeal from a judgment of Judge Byrt QC sitting in Mayor's & City of London Court on 22 May 1998. The issue was whether the judge had properly been satisfied that the five claimants had proved that their injuries were a physiological condition caused by their work for the defendant. The judge had concluded that document processing work in the defendant's encoding room was an intense, tense and high pressure occupation which, depending on the individual's temperament and reaction to pressure, placed some workers (including the claimants) under considerable physical and mental strain. He had found that the managers saw it as their job to get the maximum productivity out of their team using a bracing style of leadership which did push some encoders beyond the limits of their natural capabilities. Poor ergonomics and the intense working regime had led to genuine physical injuries which were not psychogenic in origin. The judge had awarded each claimant £7,000 general damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity, in addition to special damages. The defendant appealed arguing that: (i) the judge had reversed the burden of proof requiring the defendant to prove that something other than the working conditions had caused the injuries; (ii) the judge ought to have concluded that the claimants had not discharged their burden of proof; and (iii) the judge ought to have rejected the claimants' expert evidence in relation to the nature of the injuries.

HELD: (1) On the issue of the burden of proof, the judge had correctly found that he had a straight choice between two alternative explanations - malingering had not been suggested. The five claimants had to prove that the physical explanation for their upper limb disorders was more probable than the psychogenic cause suggested by the defendant. The judge clearly had to weigh the strength of the psychogenic case before he made a conclusion. It did not matter whether he did this before or after considering the physical case advanced by the claimants. If the judge found that the psychogenic case was wholly unconvincing it was simple logic or common sense that the claimants' physical injuries argument was more probable. This was not a case akin to Popi M (1985) 1 WLR 948 where so little was known that the judge ought to find the burden of proof discharged. On the evidence he had to choose between one explanation and another. (2) On the evidence the judge had been fully entitled to prefer the claimants' expert evidence to that of the defendant. He was entitled to use his common sense in reaching that conclusion. (3) The claimants were amongst a number of honest and reliable witnesses who described broadly similar symptoms which were temporarily related to the work which they all did. It was a glimpse of the obvious or at least common sense that there was a similar physical cause, especially where there was evidence that the conditions found by the judge had been recognised for many years as giving rise to such complaints. (4) The judge had therefore been entitled to conclude that the fibro-myalgia was physically based and arising from the work conditions. It would have been surprising if he had come to a different conclusion. (5) Save for very limited criticism the judge's judgment was admirable for its clarity and succinctness given the mass of evidence on matters that were far from straightforward. The correct finding had been reached for proper reasons.

Appeal dismissed.

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