A sales manager catastrophically brain damaged when punched out by his boss after an office Christmas party is demanding £1 million in compensation.
Clive Bellman, 62, was punched twice by his lifelong friend and recruitment tycoon, John Major, after a works do.
He ‘went straight back like a falling tree’, slamming his head on the marble floor of Northampton’s Hilton Hotel, after John Major punched him in the face for the second time.
Clive Bellman, pictured outside London’s High Court, suffered brain damage after being punched by his boss at their works Christmas do
Mr Bellman now wants up to £1m in compensation after his friend John Mayor (pictured) laid into him
Mr Bellman told an earlier his hearing that Mr Major, his lifelong friend and managing director of the recruitment company for which they both worked, has ‘ruined his life’.
He attempted to suee the company for which they both worked – Mr Major as Managing Director – Northampton Recruitment Limited.
His claim was rejected in 2016 by Judge Barry Cotter QC, who ruled the company could not be held legally to blame for Mr Major’s actions.
But now Mr Bellman’s legal team are battling on before the Court of Appeal, claiming that ‘social justice’ demands a big compensation payout.
Robert Weir QC, for Mr Bellman, said he got back up after Mr Major first hit him and ‘held out his hands in a gesture of surrender’.
But, by then, his boss had ‘lost control’ and, despite others trying to hold him back, he hit Mr Bellman with ‘a sickening blow.’
Knocked out cold with blood running from his ears, he suffered a fractured skull, causing ‘severe traumatic brain damage’.
The December 2011 incident left Mr Bellman, from Windsor, suffering fatigue, low moods and impairment of his speech and reasoning skills.
Rejecting his claim last year, Judge Cotter said a ruling in his favour would make office parties ‘potentially un-insurable’.and ‘shameful’, adding the company could not be blamed for what he did.
The two men and others had continued drinking at Northampton’s Hilton Hotel long after the end of the office bash at Collingtree Golf Club.
Those who adjourned to the hotel for ‘an impromptu drink’ were engaged in voluntary ‘recreation’ for which the company bore no responsibility.
Mr Major was not acting in his role as company boss when he lashed out at Mr Bellman and was on ‘something akin to a frolic of his own’.
Challenging the judge’s ruling today, Mr Weir said Mr Major was ‘the directing mind and will’ of the recruitment business he part-owned.
By laying on the office party, and providing alcohol to staff, the company had given him ‘the opportunity to abuse his power.’
The two men and others had continued drinking at Northampton’s Hilton Hotel long after the end of the office bash at Collingtree Golf Club (pictured)
Conversation at the hotel had turned to business and Mr Major attacked after Mr Bellman challenged one of his managerial decisions.
By appointing him as managing director, the company had given Mr Major ‘powers to chastise and discipline’ those beneath him.
And what happened was ‘closely related to confrontation and friction’ common in working environments, the QC argued.
Mr Weir told the court: ‘Social justice requires that, of two innocent parties, the managing director’s employer, not the gravely injured Mr Bellman, should bear responsibility for the consequences of the managing director’s assault.
‘Judge Cotter’s concerns, that such a result would place an undue burden upon an employer and would render the liability potentially uninsurable, were wrong’.
Resisting the appeal, Derek O’Sullivan QC, for the company, said the impromptu drink at the Hilton should not be viewed as a ‘seamless extension’ of the organised office party.
Other hotel guests, who had nothing to do with the company, were also present and most of the conversation leading up to the 3am attack ‘concerned social and sporting matters’, he added.
‘There was no question that the company required Mr Major or Mr Bellman to sit in the bar of the Hilton Hotel drinking alcohol in the early hours of the morning or that any of these men were carrying out their roles within the business at that time.’
Lords Justice Irwin and Moylan, and Lady Justice Asplin, are expected to reserve their decision on Mr Bellman’s appeal until a later date.
An earlier hearing heard, the dispute between the two men was business related and ‘not something personal’.
The court heard Mr Major exploded after Mr Bellman questioned one of his managerial decisions.