WRULD DB-Plaintiff: Rafiq Mughal

Case	Task	Injury	Date	Court	Judgment for
Mughal - v - Reuters Ltd	DSE use: sub-editing	Repetitive Strain Injury	28 Oct 1993	London High	Defendant

The Judgment in the case of Mughal -v- Reuter inspired the most extensive press coverage of any claim for a WRULD associated with computer use. In part, this can be attributed to it being the first claim by a journalist to reach Court. The fact that Mr Rafiq Mughal was "expected to be the first journalist in the UK to issue formal legal proceedings for damages over RSI - repetitive strain injury" had been reported in the Financial Times in February 1990 under the headline Journalist to sue Reuter over screen editing stress.

The opening of the trial in June 1990 was reported in The Guardian under the headline Test case journalist sues over computer strain and in the Financial Times under the headline Journalist sues for strain injury. It was perhaps inevitable that the Judgment, in favour of the Defendant, inspired front page headlines on the 29th October 1993 which included: Keyboard injury does not exist, judge rules in The Guardian and High Court judge rules that RSI does not exist in The Daily Telegraph and provoked a response, an outcry, in the press which lasted several days. The overall impression given by many of these press reports was of a concerted attempt to rubbish the Judgment, with quotes from 'apostles' of RSI expressing disbelief and references to the Judge's previous controversial ruling in a rape case.

The press reports inspired by the Judgment were littered with quotes attributed to HH Judge Prosser. He was frequently alleged to have said that "RSI" was "meaningless" and had "no place in the medical books". At no point in the Judgment does HH Judge Prosser actually state that "RSI does not exist". The simple and most important fact omitted from the press reports was that HH Judge John Prosser found, on the evidence presented during the trial, that: "He fails to convince me that he has suffered a (or any) injury which he has alleged in this case, both pleaded or in evidence".

The important point, however, with respect to the subsequent press coverage, is that the press reports of the Judgment failed to distinguish between the "diffuse pathological condition reflected by pain" (RSI) which Mr Mughal failed to convince the learned Judge he had suffered and one of the (more) clearly defined clinical conditions popularly understood to be caused by repetitive work, which the press consistently also referred to RSI.

The Judgment in Mughal -v- Reuter was referred to in many subsequent press reports of out-of-court settlements and Court awards for WRULDs. Almost without exception, the subsequent out-of-court settlements and Court awards were for one of the (more) clearly defined clinical conditions but were described in the press reports as being for RSI. Thus, having created the impression that HH Judge John Prosser had ruled that RSI "does not exist" and by failing to distinguish between using the term RSI to refer to a discrete (diffuse) condition and using the term in a generic sense, many of the subsequent press reports could insist that the subsequent, successful claims showed that HH Judge John Prosser was wrong and that RSI did exist. In reality, the much misquoted Judge made no ruling concerning the (more) clearly defined WRULDs simply because these matters did not arise for his decision.

V2.01

Last updated: 27/03/2014