27.07.2010

John McDonald successfully defends bullying and stress claim.

On 16^th July 2010 judgment was handed down by the High Court in Mullen v. Accenture Services Limited. The claimant had been employed by the defendant – who are well-known management consultants – on a computer project, where he claimed he had been subject to stress at work and victimisation and bullying by his line manager. He suffered a breakdown, which he attributed to negligence and breach of statutory duty on the part of his employers.

The case was of particular interest because the Deputy High Court Judge (HH Judge Harvey Clark QC) considered in some detail the question of what constituted bullying. He was referred to a number of the cases on this point, including Barlow v. Broxbourne BC, Waters v. Chief Constable and the unreported case of H v. Isle of Wight Council, in which Wright J had held that “The criterion of what does or does not amount to bullying in any given circumstances is not to be judged solely by the subjective perception of the victim himself … but involves an objective assessment of the observed behaviour, taken in conjunction with any apparent vulnerability in the target of the behaviour complained of.” He held that this last case was particularly helpful in the present, since the claimant clearly believed subjectively that bullying had occurred, but held that his job as judge was to go beyond subjectivity and to determine the matter as objectively as possible. On that basis, he held that that there had not been bullying, and that even if there had been, there had been “no real warning signs” of impending harm.

The case is also of interest because of the attempt by the Claimant to bypass the requirement of foreseeability in bullying and stress cases by invoking the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. The claimant’s counsel submitted that to prove an actionable breach of regulation 3 of the 1999 Regulations, it was not necessary to prove that any particular harm was foreseeable, so that – he argued - if there has been a breach of regulation 3 in the workplace and an employee has suffered psychiatric illness, he is entitled to compensation. The learned Judge held, however, that this could not possibly be the law, otherwise it would drive a coach and horses through the decision of the Court of Appeal in Hatton v. Sutherland.

John McDonald appeared for the Defendant, instructed by DWF Liverpool.