There is a constant belief that driving can result in stress. Does this ruling and the previous award bring into question just how am employer needs to exercise their duty of care.

A woman who had won nearly £110,000 in compensation from her employers for stress-related illness, has successfully fought off a bid to have the ruling quashed.

Mobile phone company O2's appeal against a decision that it was in breach of its duty by failing to relieve the pressure of an employees job was rejected by the Court of Appeal.

The woman was a regulatory finance manager with O2 when she claimed to have reached "the end of her tether" due to work pressures, and could not cope with some aspects of her job.

Three Court of Appeal judges heard how she had warned her employers of how she felt, but that they had failed to relieve her situation, and in May 2002 her mental health broke down. She has not worked since.

She was awarded a total of £109,754 by a judge at Oxford County Court last December. The judge said her illness should have been "reasonably foreseeable" to her employers.

In its appeal, O2 challenged the way the judge had dealt with the case and claimed there was no proper evidence to support the finding of foreseeability or the decision that the company's conduct contributed to her illness. It said there had been no warning signs of a breakdown in her health.

However, Lady Justice Smith, sitting with Lords Justices Sedley and Wall, said the obvious inference from the history this lady’s condition was that she "tipped over the edge because nothing significant had been done to recognise and address her need for a rest and for a change to her work requirements".