Mullen v Accenture Services Limited
Mullen was as a computer analyst at Accenture Services Limited. He was involved in a difficult project between November 2005 and March 2006, working long hours. He suffered a mental breakdown and never returned to the company. Following an internal grievance procedure, one manager was given an informal warning about his management style whilst another was found to have used inappropriate language but not to have bullied Mullen.
Mullen brought a damages claim, alleging his breakdown was caused by bullying from his line manager and negligent exposure to stress at work. He also alleged that Accenture breached regulation 3 & 4 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999; it assessed the stress levels of the project as 'tolerable' before it started, but failed to review this after the project went live. Mullen argued that this breach meant it was not necessary to prove that the particular harm suffered was foreseeable.
Whilst the judge accepted Mullen subjectively believed he had been bullied, the court was required to undertake an objective assessment of the behaviour and the line had not been crossed for the conduct to amount to "genuinely offensive and unacceptable behaviour" (Majowski v Guys and St Thomas NHS Trust [2007]). The defendant was unaware of Mullen's psychological vulnerability and thus the breakdown was not foreseeable. The claim under regulation 3 was also dismissed as an attempt to circumvent the issue of foreseeability.
This is a helpful decision for employers. Mental harm must be reasonably foreseeable in the employee in negligence claims and employers are entitled to assume that an employee can withstand the normal pressures of the job unless they know of a particular vulnerability. The importance of pre employment documents and appraisals were key in determining liability. Whether conduct amounts to bullying will require an objective assessment of the relevant conduct and criticisms of management are by no means fatal to the defence of a claim.
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