Often in the workplace, employees are faced with daunting challenges that go beyond normal work experience. In some cases, these challenges can cause a significant emotional toll, leaving individuals to wonder if they have legal recourse against their employers. It is necessary to understand an employee’s state’s law to know if there is a legal recourse for emotional distress in the workplace.
What is Emotional Distress?
Emotional distress refers to mental suffering caused by someone else’s actions, and it may be either intentional or accidental. Symptoms of emotional distress include feeling overwhelmed or hopeless, persistent worrying, fatigue or trouble keeping up with responsibilities, changes in appetite or sleep patterns, and unexplained physical pain. Emotional distress may also cause an individual to suffer from anxiety, humiliation, and even depression.
Employees may experience emotional distress in a variety of settings in the workplace. The causes of emotional distress usually stem from a traumatic event, such as extreme harassment, intimidation, or bullying. Other causes that may arise in the workplace include discrimination, tension with co-workers, and an excessive workload that extends beyond reasonable expectations.
Can You Sue Your Employer for Stress or Anxiety Under Texas Law?
Employees in Texas may find their rights outlined in the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act, which details the state’s workers’ compensation requirements. Texas workers’ compensation law allows employers to opt out of carrying workers’ compensation insurance, which gives employees an opportunity to bring legal actions on their own. The state’s workers’ compensation statute covers medical expenses, physical therapy expenses, lost wages for employees who get injured at work, including emotional injuries. Though having this insurance in the workplace is helpful for individuals, it also limits when, how, and what claims can be made. TWCA restrictions do not apply to “non-subscriber” employers, leaving open the possibility of legal actions such as infliction of emotional distress, a suit that cannot be brought against an employer with workers’ compensation. Additionally, employees are protected under the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act (TCHRA), which addresses employment discrimination and ensures protection against retaliation and harassment in the workplace. Its protections are intended to mirror federal laws like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Furthermore, the Texas Whistleblower Act provides protection to public employees who report illegal activities, safeguarding them from retaliation such as suspension or termination, and offering additional protection to certain healthcare professionals and those reporting violations of specific acts like the Hazard Communication Act.
The bar is high for an employee to bring a suit for emotional distress in Texas. In order to assert a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress under Texas law, an employee must establish that:
- The employer acted intentionally or recklessly;
- The conduct was extreme and outrageous;
- The employer’s action actually caused the employee’s emotional distress;
- The emotional distress suffered by employee was severe; and
- No other law provides protection for this type of conduct.
Courts in Texas have gone even further restricting employees’ rights to bring suit, holding that an employer’s conduct must be so extreme, outrageous, and intolerable that it goes beyond all possible bounds of decency in a civilized society.
Employees may also seek legal recourse through negligent infliction of emotional distress. However, Texas law also restricts this recourse as an individual may not bring a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress by itself. Instead, it must be attached to a physical injury in a personal injury claim. Here, an individual must prove that the employer’s negligence caused emotional distress and was severe. For negligence, an individual must prove that the defendant owed them a duty of care, that the defendant breached that duty, that the breach caused the plaintiff to experience emotional distress, and that the emotional distress was foreseeable.
How Do You Prove Emotional Distress?
When trying to prove a case of emotional distress, Texas employees must keep diligent records. Many times, evidence such as medical records, evaluation by mental health experts, and a daily journal can show that an individual is suffering from emotional distress. Proving that such emotional distress is directly caused by an employer or from a workplace issue is more difficult to show, however.
To show that an employer caused emotional distress, an individual must show that the employer’s actions were intentional or reckless, the employer’s conduct was severe and outrageous, caused severe emotional distress, and that the distress was severe enough to impact the employee’s daily life or caused them to seek medical attention. Evidence may take the form of testimony from a colleague, treating psychologist or counselor, or documentation of a diagnosis or prescribed treatments that stems directly from work-caused emotional distress. Workplace documents can also be useful when proving that an employer acted intentionally in causing emotional distress in cases such as forced resignation.
Contact Our Experienced Texas Employment Attorneys
Suffering from emotional distress in the workplace creates an unsafe environment and can lead to long-term mental and physical health issues. To understand all your options in such situations, it is important to consult with an experienced employment attorney in Texas.
Contributions to this blog by Michael Touma
