PwC sued by employee who lost half his skull after ‘pub golf’ outing

theguardian.com:

The auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is being sued by a UK employee who lost half of his skull after taking part in a “pub golf” work event that involved excessive drinking.

The employee, 28-year-old Michael Brockie, filed a personal injury claim against PwC for alleged negligence, having suffered a brain injury and been put into an induced coma in early 2019.

The lawsuit describes how staff at PwC’s Reading office were encouraged to attend the after-hours “pub golf” outing, which involved visiting nine bars, or “holes”, in which they were allegedly pushed to consume a specific alcoholic drink. Workers who used the fewest swigs to consume their drink were given the best scores, which were recorded on cards that were printed and distributed in the office, it is claimed.

Brockie became so intoxicated that he had no memory of the outing after 10pm and was found in lying in the street having suffered a serious head injury after falling over, according to court filings.

“Doctors and the police came to the conclusion that I fell over and didn’t use my hands to break the fall so I ended up hitting my head on the floor,” Brockie told ITV last year. “The next thing I remember was four weeks later.”

Brockie was described by doctors as a “walking miracle” after recovering from the head injury, which resulted in the young professional having half of his skull removed and only returning to work six months later.

The court filing against PwC claims there was “heavy pressure” to attend the event, and that the rules of the event “not only encourage but make a competitive virtue of excessive, rapid and prolonged consumption of alcohol over many hours from about 6pm.”

According to the documents, the original invite from one of PwC’s