2 E & B 216 - Tort; inducing breach; established the tort of knowingly inducing a third party to break a contract.
Tort; inducing breach of contract; established that a third party who induces an employee to break an employment contract incurs liability in tort; foundational authority on the economic tort of inducement.
Industrial action; an act lawful in itself does not become unlawful because of a malicious motive.
Industrial action; liability; a union could be sued for damages caused by a strike (Historic - reversed by statute).
Industrial action; conspiracy; a combination to injure a person in their trade is unlawful.
Trade Unions; immunity; unions are immune from tort actions (Historic).
1 WLR 321 - Industrial action; liability; trade union officials were liable for conspiracy to injure.
Industrial action; intimidation; established the tort of intimidation and the scope of exemplary damages.
Industrial action; tort; defined the intention required for the tort of inducing breach of contract.
2 Ch 106 - Industrial action; tort; interference with contract (oil deliveries).
1 WLR 142 - Industrial action; immunity; confirmed that unions have immunity for acts done in furtherance of a trade dispute.
Trade Union Activities; 'trade union activities' in the unfair dismissal context; does not support a universal exclusion of strikes from the ordinary meaning of the phrase.
Tort; conspiracy; established liability for conspiracy to injure by unlawful means.
Industrial action; trade dispute; 'secondary action' was unlawful.
1 WLR 427 - Industrial action; secondary action; checked the legality of secondary strikes (sympathy strikes).
Industrial action; injunction; injunction granted to stop secondary action.
Status; mutuality of obligation; casual workers who could refuse work were not employees.
Unfair dismissal; investigation; set guidelines for investigating theft where an informant is anonymous.
Industrial action; leafletting customers was not inducing breach of contract.
Industrial action; trade dispute; a dispute over class sizes was a trade dispute.
Industrial action; picketing; picketing is only lawful at the worker's own place of work.
Trade Unions; members cannot sue their union for the acts of shop stewards acting outside their authority.
Industrial action; ballot and strike notices; statutory immunity. The Court of Appeal (Lloyd LJ, Maurice Kay LJ agreeing) dismissed the union's appeal against an interim injunction. The union failed on the timing of notifying the ballot result under s.231A TULRCA 1992, which is a free-standing obligation independent of any call for action [73], and on the absence of the required explanation of how the figures in the notices were arrived at under s.226A(2)(c) and s.234A(3)(a) [101], [113]. Article 11 did not require those provisions to be read more leniently [113]. But compliance is not a demand for arithmetical perfection: an error of ten in a workforce figure the union was not obliged to supply, where the employer had all the information from which to deduce the correct details, was not a fatal defect [96]-[99]. The immunities remain conditional on procedural compliance, and a well-intentioned union can still fall foul of the detailed ballot provisions [119].
TUPE; pre-transfer dismissals by an administrator; reg 8 TUPE 1981; whose reason counts. Employees dismissed by administrators two days before the business was sold to a company connected with the former managing director were not dismissed for a transfer-related reason. The reason for dismissal is that of the person who took the decision, here the administrator, whose independence and genuine economic reason were unchallenged [59], [80]-[82]. A director's stratagem to engineer an administration and a sale to his associates cannot be attributed to an independent administrator so as to displace his reason, even if he guessed at it [84]; the contrary argument would make the reason depend on whether the stratagem later worked [85]. The tribunal's decision that the employees were not employed immediately before the transfer was restored and the EAT reversed (Ward and Rimer LJJ, Lawrence Collins LJ dissenting on a purposive reading of the Directive) [70], [86]. The case is authority against, not for, treating a stage-managed administration as automatically unfair.
Trade Unions; s.145B; direct offers to employees bypassing the union are unlawful if the collective bargaining process is not exhausted.
Industrial action; detriment short of dismissal; s.146 TULRCA; Article 11. The Supreme Court (Lady Simler, the other Justices agreeing) held that s.146 does not protect a worker from detriment short of dismissal for taking part in lawful strike action: trade union activities 'at an appropriate time' exclude industrial action in working hours, consistently with the limited protection against dismissal for strikers in ss.237 to 238A [44]-[47]. That absence of protection is incompatible with Article 11 where the sanction is intended to deter or penalise participation in a lawful strike [91], [117]. A compliant reading under s.3 HRA was not possible, since it would require the court to make policy choices [91]-[108]. The court made a declaration of incompatibility under s.4, holding the Court of Appeal wrong to refuse one; whether and how to legislate is for Parliament [120]-[121].
Industrial Action; Blacklisting Regulations 2010; 'activities of trade unions' in reg 3 includes participation in strikes; no TULRCA Part V compliance required; SC permission to appeal refused.