Sue Employer for Stress and Anxiety?

Not all jobs are created equal, and some are more stressful than others. If you are a mutual fund manager managing millions of dollars or a stock broker, you bet you’re going to experience stress as part of the job. However, sometimes stress and anxiety are inflicted on the employee by the employer through unrealistic and unreasonable expectations.

​

For example, the minor stress of being required to answer email and return phone calls in a timely and professional fashion is normal and expected as a secretary. But requiring a secretary to answer unmanageable amount of emails and phone calls daily all by herself in a busy office is NOT a reasonable expectation by an employer on employee.

​

Both the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) and the Employment Standards Act (ESA) have clear guideline that straightly prohibit employers from inflicting unreasonable expectations to employees or creating a toxic unwelcome hostile working environment. So not only is imposing unreasonable expectations to employees inhumane, but it’s also illegal.

​

Sue Employer for Stress and Anxiety, can I? Yes, you can file an employment law legal action against your employer if you experience stress and anxiety that is higher than the regular amount for your job. The test has both objective and subjective components and ask the question as to whether an objective person similar situated will find the job responsibilities assigned to the employee to be excessive and created unnecessary stress and anxiety in the workplace.

​

But then it begs the question as to whether or not the stress and anxiety inflicted on an employee is unreasonable? And more importantly should I sue the employer for job related stress and anxiety? As mentioned about, the test is one that has both an objective and a subjective components built into it, and it asks the question as to whether an objective person similar situated will find the job responsibilities assigned to the employee to be excessive and created unnecessary stress and anxiety in the workplace.

​

There’s a fine line to be drawn and in many occasions, expert witness testimony or report is required to establish what’s the “industry standard”, and what’s customarily being considered as reasonable or not reasonable in a given industry.