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9 Managerial L. 1 (1970-1971)

handle is hein.journals/ijlm9 and id is 1 raw text is: EDWARDS v. SOCIETY OF GRAPHICAL AND ALLIED TRADES COUR T OF APPEAL Lord Denning M.R., Sachs L.J. and Megaw L.J. EDWARDS v. SOCIETY OF GRAPHICAL AND ALLIED TRADES July 30, 1970 Trade union - Membership - Breach of contract by wrongful termination - Measure of damages - Actual loss to date of assessment - Future loss, how estimated? - Duty to mitigate - Union rules giving arbitrary power over temporary members - Effect on man's right to work - Whether invalid. The plaintiff was a Grade I craftsman, employed in a 100 per cent. union shop since 1960, who held a temporary membership card in a trade union covering the printing industry. In 1966, under a scheme operated by the union, he authorised the deduction by his employers from his pay of his weekly union contributions; but owing to a mistake by a union official the deductions were not made and the contributions remained unpaid for more than six weeks. The plaintiff was unaware of the fact until he was told by a union official that he was no longer a member by reason of rule 18(4) (h) which provided that Temporary membership shall terminate automatically if the member becomes over six weeks in arrears; and under subrule (4) (k) temporary members had no right of appeal from any decision of their branch committee. He made two applications for re-admission but both were rejected by his branch committee and his employers were obliged by threat of strike action to dismiss him. He began an action against the union claiming damages for breach of con- tract and a declaration that he had never ceased to be a temporary member. The union put in a defence claiming that his exclusion had been properly made. Vacancies for skilled work in the plaintiff's grade were scarce in the area in which he lived and were almost all controlled by the union which operated as the labour exchange. The plaintiff was unemployed for the best part of two years though he received unemployment pay. For some months he obtained work in a non-union shop but was dismissed in May, 1969, for refusing to do work which was admittedly outside his contract terms. Meanwhile in April, 1969, the union admitted that he had been wrongly excluded and that he was still a temporary member, and thereafter sent him particulars of some vacancies; but as they either were or appeared to be in an inferior grade he did not accept any of them. At the trial of his action Buckley J. held, on the issue of damages, that he had not been shown to have acted unreasonably in mitigation of the damage, and awarded him the whole of his actual financial loss of earnings to the date of the trial as well as a sum for estimated future loss of earning capa- city at £676 a year by applying the method used in personal injury cases and multiplying the annual loss by 10, a total sum of £7,971. I

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