ments of the class of cases to which Quinn v. Leathem uno belongs, cases of criminal conspiracy to injure. Lord Lindley goes further perhaps than any other legal authority of his eminence has gone in countenancing the doctrine that threats when they result in coercionthreats, that is to say, of "serious annoyance and damage" as distinguished from threats to do something itself punishable by law (as threats of bodily harm-are J. in themselves primd facie "wrongs inflicted upon the persons coerced;" but it is evident from his judgement (1), at pages 507 and 508, that Lord Lindley would not have considered what occurred here to be within the category of "coercion by threats."
As to the special legislation ("The Industrial Disputes Act") the object of the statute is to interpose investigation and negotiation with a view to conciliation between the institution of a dispute and the culmination of it in a strike or lockout. But there is nothing illegal (notwithstanding the legislation) in an employer or his workmen deciding to pay no attention to outside advice or decision but to insist upon their or his terms and to enforce them by all legal means and nothing illegal in making this known to the other party to the dispute.
I am not satisfied that what was said necessarily meant that the men intended to act illegally. If the point had been taken at an earlier stage the facts would no doubt have been more closely investigated. The appeal should be allowed and the action dismissed with costs.
J.-The history of the events out of which this litigation arose and the material facts are fully stated in the judgments of the learned trial judge and of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Alberta(2).
The plaintiffs hold a judgment against all the defendants for $100 for general damages and for $435.62 for loss of wages.
Local Union No. 1562, U.M.W., an unincorporated and unregistered Trades Union, was sued as a corporation and the six other defendants as individuals and not in any representative capacity. There appears to be some uncertainity whether the trial judge intended that judgment should be entered against the Local Union. It would seem to have been his opinion that the assets of that body could be reached "only by suing the individual members "-presumably all of them or certain members properly selected as representatives of all treated as a class. But an amendment asked for by the plaintiffs at the close of the trial whereby the six individual defendants should be constituted representatives of all the members of the Local Union and authorized to defend as such, while not refused, does not appear to have been allowed and the formal judgment was entered against the Union as well as against the individual defendants personally. The appeal taken from that judgment to the Appellate Division stands dismissed by the order of that court, which consisted of four members.
Two of them (Stuart and Hyndman JJ.) would have allowed the appeal, holding that no actionable wrong had been established.
The learned Chief Justice of Alberta was of the opinion that the appeal should be dismissed with costs.
Mr. Justice Beck, concurs in the disposition of the appeal made by the Chief Justice: but, if giving effect to his own view, he would have required the plaintiffs to elect to
The grounds of appeal to this court are:- (1) That no actionable wrong has been proved against any of the defendants; and (2) that the Local Union, as an unincorporated and unregistered Trades Union, cannot be sued.
To deal with the appeal satisfactorily it is necessary to appreciate the cause or causes of action as formulated in the statement of claim. Against the Local Union there are two distinct grounds of complaint:
(1) that the plaintiffs were twice wrongfully refused membership in it contrary to the terms of its constitution and bylaws; and (2) that by wrongfully and maliciously objecting to their being employed by the Rose-Deer Mining Company, Limited, and intimidating that company by threatening a general strike the Local Union induced it to dismiss the plaintiffs from its employment.
Against the six individual defendants the cause of action set up is wrongfully and unlawfully and maliciously conspiring and combining to deprive the plaintiffs of employment and to induce their dismissal by the Rose-Deer Company and in pursuance thereof intimidating that company by threats etc., resulting in the plaintiffs' discharge etc.
It will be convenient to deal first with the case of the individual defendants.
The learned trial judge, as I read his judgment, makes no finding of conspiracy or combination. In this he may possibly have been well advised.
Mr. Justice Stuart says:- Except probably as to the defendant Stefanucci, who accompanied the defendant Young and one Rose (not made a party) on a mission to communicate the attitude of the Local Union to Tupper, the manager of the Rose-Deer Company, this statement of the effect of the evidence appears to be accurate. Redpath's evidence on discovery, as an officer of the Local Union, that Gerew and Kamuckle attended a meeting at which the plaintiffs' applications for membership were rejected is not admissible against them in their individual capacity. There appears to be no evidence that Marcelli attended any meeting and nothing except the silence of the statement of defence to shew that Lorenzo was even a member of the Local Union. As to Stefanucci and Young, apart from any question of conspiracy and combination, as delegates of the Local Union they personally conveyed the message of that body to Tupper. If the delivery of that message, having regard to all the circumstances, amounted to a coercive threat designed to bring about the dismissal of the plaintiffs and had that result, there is in my opinion no room to doubt the individual liability of these two defendants. That they acted as agents for the Union, or, to speak more accurately, of its members, of course affords them no answer in this action for tort.
Nor do I think they should be heard to set up that the only case alleged against them is one of conspiracy.
As to them there is probably sufficient evidence to sustain a judgment on that ground also. But, at the trial, they made common cause with the Local Union, and the substantial defence of both was a justification of all that had been done by the Union and on its behalf. Moreover, they are charged with having actually intimidated the plaintiffs' employer by threats and thus procured their discharge. The allegation that this was done in pursuance of a conspiracy, if not proven, may be treated as surplusage. I would incline to hold them liable on both grounds-but, at all events, on that of participation in the actual commission of the wrong done the plaintiffs.
The learned trial judge rests his judgment against the other four individual defendants solely on their responsibility as members of the Union for the authorized acts of its duly constituted agents. What he says as to the liability of these defendants is contained in the following passage from his judgment:- With great respect, in the absence of some evidence, admissible against them, that they were at least present at the meetings when the acts complained of were authorized or approved of, or that they otherwise sanctioned them, I think a case has not been made against these defendants.
Mere membership in the Union would not, in my opinion, render them personally and individually answerable in damages for the results of those acts. There is no evidence of any participation by them in the commission the actual wrong done the plaintiffs.
The evidence, however, convinces me that, acting through authorized agents, the Local Union as a body brought about the dismissal of the plaintiffs by threatening a general strike should they be retained in the company's employment and I think it is a fair inference from the proven facts, that while subsequently professing willingness to allow them to be re-employed by the company, the Local Union in fact made their reemployment impracticable and that it fully intended to bring about that result. I am, with great respect, unable to appreciate how the complacency of the manager of the Rose-Deer Company, induced by various considerations which Mr. Justice Stuart emphasizes, affects the matter. It merely served to design. Nor do I perceive the force of the distinction which that learned judge draws between the responsibility of the Union as a body for the threat of a strike and that of its members as employees of the Rose- Deer Company.
The threat was made by the Union through its delegates on behalf of all its members who were the company's employees. It was the act of the Union (so far as such a body can be said to act) done by its instructions and for its purposes.
I think it is also a fair inference from all the circumstances in evidence that a desire to prevent the plaintiffs continuing in the employment of the Rose- Deer Company and to punish them for remaining non-union men after the re-establishment of Local Union 1562, in 1916, and their refusal to join it when it was first suggested to them to do so actuated its conduct in seeking their dismissal rather than any genuine wish to promote the interests of trades-unionism generally or its own immediate welfare.
Otherwise I find it very difficult to understand the Local Union's refusal to accept the plaintiffs as members even when urged to do so by the officers of the Union of District No. 18, to which it is in some degree subordinate.
On this view of the evidence the liability of the Local Union, if it be susceptible of being held responsible and be suable as a body, or the liability of all its members who participated in or sanctioned the steps taken to secure the dismissal of the plaintiffs, if the application made by the plaintiffs' counsel at the trial to amend by making the individual defendants defendants also in a representative capacity on behalf of its members should be granted, is, in my opinion, established.
Injury to the plaintiffs has been proved. That injury was the direct and intended outcome of action of the Local Union's committee taken by its direction for that purpose.
That action amounted to a coercive threat and was therefore an unlawful means taken to interfere with the plaintiffs' employment, the use of which, damage having ensued, constituted in itself an actionable wrong.
The authorities bearing on this aspect of the case at bar have been so fully and carefully reviewed in the able judgment recently delivered by McCardie J. in Pratt v. Briti8h Medical Association(1), that further reference to them seems unnecessary.
See especially pages 256-7, 260, 265-8, and 277-8.
Perhaps it may not be amiss, however, to mention as very closely in point Lord Justice Romer's judgment in Giblan v. National Amalgamated Labourers' Union (2), and Lord Lindley's speech in Quinn v. Leathem(3).
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The Local Union's vindictive motive excludes any possible defence of "justification" or "just cause" in the present case, if, indeed, where unlawful means have been resorted to that defence would be open however innocent or even laudable the purpose may have been. This aspect of the case is fully discussed by McCardie J. in the Pratt Case(1), at pages 265 et See too the South Wales Miners' Federation v. Glamorgan Coal Co. (2).
I have reached the foregoing conclusions of fact without taking into consideration, except as against himself, the discovery evidence given by Albert Young, which, I agree with Mr. Justice Stuart, would be inadmissible against the Local Union, even if it had been properly sued either as a corporation or quasicorporation or is estopped by its conduct from denying that it was so sued, or as against the other defendants either individually or in any representative capacity. Young was examined for discovery solely as an individual defendant and not in any sense as an officer selected to make discovery on behalf of the Union or its members. His evidence so given is not within the provisions of Alberta Supreme Court Rule 250.
If the Local Union, though not a corporation, had been rightly made a defendant the evidence of Redpath would be a admissible as against it, and, having regard to the provision of Rule 3 of the Alberta Supreme Court that I incline to think it would also be admissible against the individual defendants if sued as representatives of all the members of the Union.
There remain for consideration the questions whether the Local Union was properly made a defendant in the first instance or is estopped from denying that it was so; and, if both these questions should be 1e answered in the negative, whether the plaintiffs' application to amend should be granted.
I have no doubt that the Local Union, as an unincorporated and unregistered body, was not properly made a defendant and that service on it must have been set aside had application been made for that relief.
Metallic Roofing Co. v. Local Union No. While I should have thought it better, had the defence in addition to the bare denial of incorporation contained a plea that the Local Union is not registered, is not a partnership, and, as an entity not known to the law, cannot be sued by its adopted name (R. 93),I incline to think this issue was sufficiently raised by the explicit traverse of the allegation that the Local Union is a body corporate. But, if not, the objection to suing the Local Union being its non-existence as an entity known to the law, I confess my inability to understand how any conduct of those representing that body, such as that here relied on, can create an estoppel which would justify the granting of a judgment against it. A judgment should not wittingly be entered against a non-entity.
In Krug Furniture Co. v. Berlin Union of Woodworkers(2), relied upon by the Chief Justice of Alberta and Mr. Justice Beck, the defendant Union, sued as a corporation, appeared, apparently as such, unconditionally and its statement of defence did not contain the plea nul tiel corporation as required by the Rules of Court. Its incorporation was accordingly presumed. The explicit denial of incorporation in the present instance precludes any such presumption. In my opinion the judgment against the Local Union in its adopted name cannot be maintained.