Rookes v. Barnard
Encyclopedia
Rookes v Barnard [1964] UKHL 1 is a UK labour law case and the leading case in English law
English law
English law is the legal system of England and Wales, and is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countries and the United States except Louisiana...

 on punitive damages
Punitive damages
Punitive damages or exemplary damages are damages intended to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit...

 and was a turning point in judicial activism against trade unions.

The case was almost immediately reversed by the Trade Disputes Act 1965 insofar as it decided on economic torts, although the law on punitive damages remains authoritative.

Facts

Douglas Rookes was a draughtsman, employed by British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC). He resigned from his union, the Association of Engineering and Shipbuilding Draughtsman (AESD), after a disagreement. BOAC and AESD had a closed shop
Closed shop
A closed shop is a form of union security agreement under which the employer agrees to hire union members only, and employees must remain members of the union at all times in order to remain employed....

 agreement, and AESD threatened a strike unless Rookes resigned also from his job or was fired. BOAC suspended Rookes and, after some months, dismissed him with one week's salary in lieu of proper notice.

Rookes sued the union officials, including Mr Barnard, the branch chairman (also the divisional organiser Mr Silverthorne and the shop steward Mr Fistal). Rookes said that he was the victim of a tortious intimidation that had used unlawful means to induce BOAC to terminate his contract. The strike was alleged to be the unlawful means.

Judgment

At first instance, before Sachs J, the action succeeded. This was overturned in the Court of Appeal. The House of Lords reversed the court of appeal, finding in favour of Rookes and against the union. Citing a case from the eighteenth century called Tarelton v. M'Gawley (1793) Peake 270 where a ship fired a cannonball across the bows of another, Lord Reid said the union was guilty of the tort of intimidation. It was unlawful intimidation 'to use a threat to break their contracts with their employer as a weapon to make him do something which he was legally entitled to do but which they knew would cause loss to the plaintiff.'

A corollary to the main issue in the case, but of greater lasting importance, was Lord Devlin's pronouncements on when punitive damages are applied. The only three situations in which damages are allowed to be punitive, i.e. with the purpose of punishing the wrongdoer rather than aiming simply to compensate the claimant, are in cases of,
  1. Oppressive, arbitrary or unconstitutional actions by the servants of government.
  2. Where the defendant's conduct was 'calculated' to make a profit for himself.
  3. Where a statute expressly authorises the same.


This aspect of Rookes v Barnard has not been followed in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 or Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

Significance

The case was met with immediate outrage for creating, or reviving, economic torts as a weapon to undermine the right to strike. This was reversed by the Trade Disputes Act 1965.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK