SOME LEADING ENGLISH CASES ON TRADE AND LABOR DISPUTES.

As a result of competition and rivalry in business, or as a result of the efforts of associations of laborers or assciations of capitalists to advance the interests of their members, acts which injure others are constantly done by individuals or associations. We have an increasing number of cases in which the courts have attempted to distinguish between what a man may and what he may not lawfully do in the furtherance of what he believes to be his own business interests or the economic interest of the class to which he belongs. A convenient name for this class of cases, one at least which distinguishes them from those dealing with commercial law, is to speak of them as cases dealing with economic conflicts. Among the large number of cases properly falling under this class are those which relate to civil liability for interference in the trade relations of others. The means employed by the defendant to accomplish this interference may be a written or spoken statement defamatory of the plaintiff's character or methods of business. In such cases the civil wrong, if any, is slander or libel. With wrongs of this character this paper does not deal.

There are other means, however, which may be employed to injure the business of one's rival in trade or one's enemy in a labor dispute. Those with whom they deal may be persuaded not to deal any longer with them, or even to break their contracts with them, by other means than the libelous publication or the slanderous statement; they may also be persuaded by argument, by the offer of something of pecuniary value, by the threat of business loss, or by the threat of physical harm to person or property. It is the object of this paper to examine those English cases, beginning with Lumley v. Gye, which discuss the civil liability of one person for injury to another, when the immediate cause of the injury is the refusal of some third person to deal with the plaintiff, or a breach of contract by a third person, the third person having been induced to act as he did, either by an offer on the part of the defendant of something of pecuniary value, or by the defendant's threat of business loss.

It will be noticed that within the limits indicated, four questions can be discussed.

First: Has A. an action against B., if B., by means of an offer to C. of something of pecuniary value, induces C. to break his contract with A.?

Second: Has A. an action against B. if B. induces C. to break a contract with A. by threats of business loss?

Third: Has A. an action against B., if B., by means of an offer to C. of something of pecuniary value, induces C. not to make a contract with A. that he would otherwise have made?

Fourth: Has A. an action against B., if B. induces C., by threats of business loss, not to make a contract with A. which he would otherwise have made?

The attempt to indicate how far these questions have been answered by the English courts, leads us to an examination of four cases well known to the profession in this country. The earliest is Lumley v. Gye, which was afterwards con

'This analysis of the methods of persuasion is not necessarily exhaustive.

22 E. & B. 215, 1853.

firmed by the Court of Appeal in Bowen v. Hall. The three other cases are: Mogul Steamship Company v. MacGregor, Temperton v. Russel, and Allen v. Flood. We will also have to examine the more recent case of Quinn v. Leathem; a case which may soon become almost as famous as any of the others.

The facts of Lumley v. Gye are simple. Miss Wagner was an opera singer. She contracted with Lumley to sing under his management for a period of three months. Gye, a rival operatic manager, persuaded her to leave Lumley, before the expiration of the term for which she was employed, and sing for him, Gye. For this persuasion, with its resulting injury, Lumley sued Gye. The Court of Queen's Bench declared by a vote of three to one that he had a cause of action. It will be noticed that this case involves the first of our four questions, and apparently answers it in the affirmative. There is the contract between Lumley and Wagner which Gye induces Wagner to break by the offer to her of something of pecuniary value, that is a position at his theatre. But a perusal of the case as reported shows us that the first question as we have stated it was not argued by counsel or considered by any of the four judges. At the time the case was decided the action for enticing a man's servant away from his service was well known. If Miss Wagner, under the decided cases of this class, could be regarded as the servant of Lumley, his cause of action was clear. One of the plaintiff's counts is drawn on this theory, and one of the three judges who voted for the plaintiff, Sir Charles Crompton, rests his opinion solely on this ground, while a second, Sir William Wightman, regards it as sufficient for the decision, and Sir John T. Coleridge, who dissented, devotes a considerable part of his opinion to proving that Miss Wagner was not the servant of the plaintiff. If from this point of view the decision is much narrower than the scope of our first question, the

' (1901) A. C. 495. The only other case of importance to be examined is Lyons v. Wilkins (1896) 1 Ch. 811.

plaintiff's second count and the way it was treated by at least two of the judges brings up a much wider question. The plaintiff declares: "That he had contracted and agreed with Johanna Wagner to perform in the theatre for a certain time. Yet defendant, well-knowing the premises,

and maliciously intending to injure the plaintiff whilst the agreement with Wagner was in force, and before the expiration of the term, enticed and procured Wagner' to refuse to perform.

It is evident from the language used that in the mind of the pleader, the intent to injure the plaintiff, the malice, is the element which gives to the defendant's act the character of a civil wrong. Given this malice the method employed to persuade Miss Wagner was unimportant. All the judges, except Sir Charles Crompton, agree with counsel at least to the extent of regarding the question before them as being, whether B. is civilly liable to A. if he induces C., with the desire to injure A., or to benefit himself at A.'s expense, to break his contract with A.? Two of the judges give unequivocal affirmative answers to this question. Thus, Sir William Erle regards the rule making one man liable for enticing the servant of another from his employment as resting "upon the principle that the procurement of the violation of the right is a cause of action," and he further affirms that: "He who maliciously procures a damage to another by violation of his right ought to be made to indemnify; and that, whether he procures an actionable wrong or a breach of contract." 199 So also to the same effect is the opinion of Sir William Wightman. He says: "It was undoubtedly prima facie an unlawful act on the part of Miss Wagner to break her contract, and, therefore, a tortious act of the defendant maliciously to procure her to do so.

"10 Even Sir Charles Crompton, who put the case solely on the ground that Miss Wagner was the servant of Lumley, said that he by no means wished to be considered as holding "that the larger ground" is not tenable, “or as saying that in no case except that of master and servant is

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