V1.01

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Financial Times journalist failed to establish that the use of a VDU was dangerous and that, on the balance of probabilities, they were suffering from various musculo-skeletal problems as a result of using a computerised writing and editing system.

In an action brought by the five plaintiffs the case turned on the examination of an apparent outbreak of upper limb disorders among journalists of the Financial Times during, in particular, the later months of 1988. The trial was occasioned by the claims of former sub-editors for damages for personal injuries because of the paper's alleged negligence and breach of statutory duty under s.14 Offices Shops and Railway Premises Act 1963. The plaintiffs complained of the working conditions at the paper's Bracken House premises following the commissioning of EDWIN, a computerised system for the writing, editing and printing of the paper. The plaintiffs accepted that the paper was a good and caring employer and that the breaches alleged were not representative of its normal high standards of employment. The paper, for its part, whilst denying liability, accepted that the plaintiffs had experienced pain albeit maintaining that this was not the result of any personal injury and certainly nothing for which the paper was liable. The plaintiffs did not seek to prove a repetitive strain injury ('RSI') but complained of specific musculo-skeletal disorders which were familiar in everyday medical practice. The plaintiffs claimed that their disorders were the result of inadequate research before EDWIN was introduced, of a failure to provide proper training in the health and safety implications of work at VDUs, of bad work stations, and of the pressure of work when the paper had moved to "front end" production. That move had been viewed with apprehension by the journalists and others but had been broadly successful. The paper denied that there was anything physically or ergonomically wrong with the EDWIN system.

HELD: (1) Prior to the introduction of EDWIN, the plaintiffs had been very apprehensive of it following alarming reports of the possible effects of VDUs. These reports were probably alarmist. But there were features in the background of each of the plaintiffs which could have allowed the inevitable anxiety associated with EDWIN to become compounded. (2) Miss Amosu had found the new work challenging with a steep learning curve; the other plaintiffs had their own difficulties or disappointments, either in terms of promotion, recognition or personal logisitics. They were vulnerable to suggestion and to adopting the fears of others. (3) The overall response to initial complaints about EDWIN was likely to have exacerbated the apprehensions of the plaintiffs. Their response was to over-medicalise their fears. (4) There was a long history of outbreaks of socially determined conditions which lacked any organic cause and which went back to complaints about the replacement of the quill by steel nibbed pens by Civil Service clerks in the last century. This was likely to have been such a case and there was certainly nothing to establish that the use of a VDU was damaging to health. (5) Whilst a patient history consistent with a particular condition could itself afford evidence of that condition, the problem the plaintiffs faced lay with the contemporaneous medical evidence which did little or nothing to support their individual cases. (6) The paper's medical expert opinion was more in tune with the dearth of contemporary evidence and was to be preferred. Thus, on the balance of probability the plaintiffs had failed to show that they suffered from the physical problems they variously set out to establish.

Judgment for the defendant.