When do Employment Tribunals give awards for 'injury to feelings' and how much will they give?

Awards for ‘Injury to Feelings’ can be made by a Tribunal when there has been direct statutory discrimination. In practice this means when a Tribunal makes a finding of unlawful discrimination or harassment on the grounds of race, sex, disability, sexual orientation, religious belief or (from October 2006) age.

A similar award of ‘detriment’ can also be made when an employee has been subject to a detriment as a result of making a ‘protected disclosure’ under the so called whistleblowers act (incorporated into the Employment Rights Act 1996). However awards of injury to feelings cannot currently be made in claims of unfair dismissal, even if someone is forced out of a job as a result of bullying. There may be other avenues open to the claimant, for example a claim under the Protection from Harassment Act or for psychological damage, but I’m not going to go into those areas here.

It will up to the Tribunal to assess the actual injury to feelings to the Claimant in the particular case. No two people will take something the same way and equally it can be difficult to guess the amount an Employment Tribunal might award for injury to feelings.

In one reported case, Vento v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, in 2002, the Court of Appeal stated that:
· The top band for injury to feelings should normally be between £15,000 and £25,000 in the most serious cases, such as where there has been a lengthy campaign of discriminatory harassment.
· The middle band of between £5,000 and £15,000 should be used for serious cases which do not merit an award in the highest band.
· Awards of between £500 and £5,000 are appropriate for less serious cases, such as where the act of discrimination is an isolated or one off occurrence.

I understand that statistically, most such awards are under £5,000. In one reported case in 2005, Greig –v- Initial Security Ltd, the Scottish EAT indicated that there was no reason why awards for injury to feelings could not be less than £500, though the practice does appear to have arisen of awarding at least £500.

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