Obiter

Hegarty v Queensland Ambulance Service [2007] QCA 366

In Hegarty v Queensland Ambulance Service,¹ a paramedic developed psychiatric injuries after exposure to numerous traumatic events at work. The Court of Appeal allowed the State’s appeal, dismissing the paramedic’s actions, concluding it was difficult for supervisors to recognise his psychological distress, despite training.

COURT: Queensland Court of Appeal (Jerrard JA, Keane JA, Douglas J).

PARTIES: Hegarty (Plaintiff), Queensland Ambulance Service (‘QAS’) (Respondent).

PROCEDURAL HISTORY: This case is on appeal from the Supreme Court of Queensland. The trial judge (Wilson J) held that the QAS breached its duty by failing to provide adequate training to its supervisors, specifically to recognise the signs of psychological distress in Hegarty.² QAS appealed the decision.

FACTS:

1. From 1984 to 1999, Hegarty worked for QAS as an ambulance officer.³
2. Hegarty raised several complaints to his supervisors of his deteriorating mental health, requesting transfer from Gayndah to Bundaberg.⁴
3. Hegarty left his employment suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,⁵ as a result of attending numerous traumatic scenes as an ambulance officer,⁶ claiming QAS is responsible.⁷
4. Hegarty contended that if his supervisors had been appropriately trained to identify the signs of stress or dysfunction in him, and recommended professional assistance, it would have prevented or reduced his psychiatric injuries.⁸

ISSUES:

1. Whether the employer had a duty to prevent the psychiatric injury of its employee and whether the employer breached its duty?
2. Whether employee’s supervisors had adequate training to identify the mental health signs in the employee, exposed to multiple distressing and traumatic experiences, and whether recommending professional assistance (psychological assessment and treatment), would have prevented or reduced his psychiatric injuries?

COURT’S REASONING:

JERRARD JA:

Jerrard JA disagreed with the trial judge, that if supervisors had been given appropriate training, they would have been able to recognise signs of possible dysfunction in Hegarty in 1996.⁹ His Honour said at 11:

… Mr Hegarty did not describe giving unequivocal signs of dysfunction in 1996, as opposed to seeking a transfer to Bundaberg, without revealing the extent to which he experienced recurrent images and recollections of the stressful incidents he experienced as an ambulance officer. Absent that critical information, his behaviour was consistent with the opinions other officers had about him, namely that he was efficient, conscientious, ambitious, and good at his work.¹⁰

KEANE JA:

Keane JA noted the area of debate concerned the extent to which the Defendant was duty-bound to ensure that its superior officers should intervene with individual ambulance officers in relation to possible signs of deterioration in their mental health.¹¹ His Honour identified the difficulties of psychiatric injury to cases of physical injury:¹²

It must be said immediately that, while an employer owes the same duty to exercise reasonable care for the mental health of an employee as it owes for the employee’s physical well-being,¹³ special difficulties may attend the proof of cases of negligent infliction of psychiatric injury.¹⁴

In such cases, the risk of injury may be less apparent than in cases of physical injury. Whether a risk is perceptible at all may in the end depend on the vagaries and ambiguities of human expression and comprehension.¹⁵

Keane JA at [47], observed the decision of the High Court in Koehler v Cerebos (Australia) Ltd (2005) 222 CLR 44, that a stable appreciation of the content of the employer’s duty to take reasonable care is essential; and that it is erroneous to proceed on the assumption that:¹⁶

[T]he relevant duty of care [is] sufficiently stated as a duty to take all reasonable steps to provide a safe system of work without examining what limits there might be on the kind of steps required of an employer.¹⁷

In the claim of negligence, at [102]:

The plaintiff’s case fails because the likelihood is that, in truth, supervisors trained in accordance with Professor Bryant’s evidence would not, in the circumstances of this case, have intervened in the manner required to make good the plaintiff’s case of negligence.¹⁸

In the claim of breach of statutory duty, at [103]:

In Schiliro v Peppercorn Child Care Centres Pty Ltd (No 2) [2001],¹⁹ the court held that s 28(1) of the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 (Qld) conferred a civil cause of action upon employees injured as a result of a breach of that provision. Section 28(1) provides: “An employer has an obligation to ensure the workplace health and safety of each of the employer’s workers at work.”²⁰

Keane JA concluded the plaintiff did not prove that the defendant caused the plaintiff injury by a breach of the obligation to ensure the workplace health and safety of the plaintiff.²¹ His Honour held that the appeal should be allowed, and the plaintiff’s action should be dismissed.²²

DOUGLAS J:

Douglas J cited the authority High Court case Roads and Traffic Authority of NSW v Dederer [2007] HCA 42, as per Gummow J emphasised at [43]: “[t]hat all duties of care are to be discharged by the exercise of reasonable care and do not impose a more stringent or onerous burden”.²³ Douglas J agreed with the reasons of Jerrard JA and Keane JA.

DECISION:

The Queensland Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge’s decision and dismissed Hegarty’s action; claim for negligence, breach of contract and breach of statutory duty (Jerrard and Keane JJA and Douglas J).

The Court determined that although psychiatric harm was a foreseeable risk in emergency service roles, the employer QAS, had implemented adequate support systems for employees and had not failed in its duty of care, thus, no breach of duty.

Furthermore, there is no sufficient basis for a finding that the Defendant’s supervisors would have concluded from their discussion that the only reasonable course was to advise the plaintiff to seek psychological assessment and treatment (Jerrard and Keane JJA and Douglas J).²⁴ Even if more comprehensive training had been provided to the supervisors, it would not necessarily have prevented Hegarty’s psychiatric injuries.²⁵

ORDER:

Appeal allowed. Plaintiff’s action dismissed.

SIGNIFICANCE:

Hegarty v Queensland Ambulance Service [2007] QCA 366 demonstrates the difficult nature of assessing employer liability for psychiatric injuries with reasonable expectations of supervisors in recognising mental health concerns of its employees.

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FOOTNOTES:

1. Hegarty v Queensland Ambulance Service [2007] QCA 366 (Court of Appeal) (‘Hegarty’). ↩︎
2. Hegarty v Queensland Ambulance Service [2007] QSC 90 (Wilson J). ↩︎
3. Hegarty (n 1) 12. ↩︎
4. Ibid 3. ↩︎
5. Ibid. ↩︎
6. Ibid 8; ibid (n 2) 118. Wilson J found Mr Hegarty was exposed to multiple traumatic events in his 15-year service as an ambulance officer, experiencing a cumulative stress reaction over time, as opposed to an acute reaction to a single traumatic event. ↩︎
7. Hegarty (n 1) 11. ↩︎
8. Ibid 4. ↩︎
9. Ibid 11. ↩︎
10. Ibid. ↩︎
11. Ibid 14. ↩︎
12. Ibid. ↩︎
13. State of New South Wales v Seedsman [2000] NSWCA 119; Mannall v State of New South Wales [2001] NSWCA 327, [64]; Koehler v Cerebos (Australia) Ltd (2005) 222 CLR 44, 53 [19]. ↩︎
14. Gillespie v The Commonwealth (1991) 105 FLR 196, 202. ↩︎
15. Cf Koehler v Cerebos (Australia) Ltd (2005) 222 CLR 44, 54 [24]. ↩︎
16. Hegarty (n 1) 15. ↩︎
17. Ibid; Koehler v Cerebos (Australia) Ltd [2005] HCA 15. ↩︎
18. Hegarty (n 1) 37. ↩︎
19. Schiliro v Peppercorn Child Care Centres (No 2) [2001] 1 Qd R 518. ↩︎
20. See ibid; Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 (Qld) s 28 (rep). ↩︎
21. Hegarty (n 1) 37. ↩︎
22. Ibid. ↩︎
23. Ibid 37 [109]; Roads and Traffic Authority of NSW v Dederer [2007] HCA 42. The High Court held that the Roads and Traffic Authority of NSW did not breach its duty of care to a teenager who became a partial paraplegic by diving off a bridge. ↩︎
24. Hegarty (n 1) 36. ↩︎
25. See Hegarty (n 1). ↩︎