Former fiscal sues for injury through stress at work

A former senior procurator fiscal depute is seeking damages of £1.3m, claiming she was forced to leave her job due to stress caused by overwork.

Laura Malone's action in the Court of Session against the Lord Advocate was continued for six weeks by Lord Brailsford yesterday to allow her representatives time to amend her case. Among the defences it is claimed that her managers were unaware of her stress at the time.

Ms Malone (51) states in her case that she had worked for the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service since 1991, and had been rated as performing at "a very high standard" until she was moved to the health & safety unit in 2010. She was not given training in the relevant law or help from managers, and began to feel tearful and stressful and started drinking more. The issues continued when she was moved to the forensic gateway unit. She suffered depression from April 2012 and her condition persisted, though she left the prosecution service in December 2014. 

She claims that managers ignored her complaints and requests for help, and that she was displaying physical manifestations of her condition. The Lord Advocate has sought to have the action dismissed on the basis that Ms Malone had not disclosed her problems and the law required it to be proved in such cases that managers knew an employee was suffering from poor health caused by working conditions.