[Unlawful Dismissal] Laws v London Chronicle

A few weeks after the plaintiff had joined the employ of the defendant company she was dismissed summarily for disobeying an order given by the chairman and managing director. During a business meeting which the plaintiff had been required to attend, the plaintiff’s immediate superior, D., had an altercation with the chairman and managing director and D. left the meeting, inviting the plaintiff and another employee to accompany him. The chairman and managing director told the two employees to stay where they were but they both left the room. Having been summarily dismissed, the plaintiff brought proceedings:—

Held , that this single act of disobedience did not justify the summary dismissal of the plaintiff; it was not an act showing a wilful disregard of the essentials of the contract of service which amounted to a repudiation of the contract by the plaintiff; accordingly the plaintiff was entitled to damages for wrongful dismissal.

Dictum of Lord James of Hereford in Clouston & Co. Ltd. v. Corry [1906] A.C. 122, 129 applied.

Turner v. Mason (1845) 14 M. & W. 112 distinguished.

[1959] 1 WLR 698 at 699

APPEAL from Judge Dale, sitting at the Westminster County Court.

By a letter dated May 28, 1958, the defendant company offered the plaintiff employment as an “advertisement representative” at a weekly salary of £10 with 5 per cent. commission. The employment was expressed to be terminable on either party giving one month’s notice. The letter was signed by one Delderfield, the manager of the advertising staff. On Friday, June 20, the plaintiff and the other members — of the advertisement staff were required to attend a meeting in the room of the chairman and managing director, a Mr. Brittain. The meeting was convened to hear observations of a Mr. Blakey, on matters of business efficiency. During the meeting Mr. Brittain had an altercation with Delderfield. It was suggested that Delderfield was drunk and that he needed black coffee to calm him. He said that he would stand no more and would go “taking the staff” with him. He did leave, inviting his two juniors to accompany him. Brittain said to them “Stay where you are,” but they both left the room.

On the following Monday, June 23, when the plaintiff attended the defendants’ premises she was handed a letter, addressed to her by the secretary, which stated:

As a result the plaintiff left the service of the defendant company.

She brought proceedings for wrongful dismissal and claimed damages. The defendants denied that she had been dismissed, but said that, if there was dismissal, it was not wrongful. The county court judge awarded her £45 damages and costs, and the defendants appealed on the issue of wrongful dismissal only.

LORD EVERSHED M.R. stated the facts and continued: It is the corner-stone of Mr. Stable’s case that there was in truth nothing that a self-respecting employer could do but to dismiss summarily: for here was an order given — “Stay where you are” — and disobeyed. Mr. Stable has cited authority — of antiquity, but none the less of respectability — to show that disobedience (as he contends) of any order that is lawful entitles the employer to dismiss the servant summarily. In Turner v. Mason³ a domestic servant — quite deliberately, because she had made a request[1959] 1 WLR 698 at 700which was rejected — absented herself during a certain night when she should have been on duty; and her plea of justification was that her mother was desperately ill — though it is not clear that she so informed her employer. She was dismissed; and the court of Queen’s Bench affirmed the view that the dismissal was justified. I will not read the judgments of Parke C.B. and Barons Alderson and Rolfe; but it would in my judgment be going too far to say that any of those judges laid it down as a proposition of law that every act of disobedience of a lawful order must entitle the employer to dismiss. I think that cannot be extracted from the judgments; and I am satisfied that it is too narrow a proposition as one of law.

The law to be applied is stated (for example) in the paragraphs of Halsbury’s Laws of England, 3rd ed., Vol. 25, at pp. 485 and 486, to which Mr. Stable referred us in reply; and I will cite a sentence or two as a foundation to what follows. “Wilful disobedience to the lawful and reasonable order of the master justifies summary dismissal.” Then, a little later,

Later, again,

And in one of the footnotes on that page there is a further statement, in reference to Edwards v. Levy,⁴ observing that in that case

To my mind, the proper conclusion to be drawn from the passages I have cited and the cases to which we have been referred is that, since a contract of service is but an example of contracts in general, so that the general law of contract will be applicable, it follows that the question must be — if summary dismissal is claimed to be justifiable — whether the conduct complained of is such as to show the servant to have disregarded the essential conditions of the contract of service. It is, no doubt, therefore, generally true that wilful disobedience of an order will justify summary dismissal, since wilful disobedience of a lawful and reasonable order shows a disregard — a complete disregard — of a condition essential to the contract of service, namely, the condition that the servant must obey the proper orders of the master, and that unless he does so the relationship is, so to speak, struck at fundamentally.

In the passages which I have read, it will be remembered, there is a statement “… there is no fixed rule of law defining the degree of misconduct which will justify dismissal.” That statement is derived from the judgment of the Privy Council delivered by Lord James of Hereford in the case to which Mr.[1959] 1 WLR 698 at 701Stewart referred of Clouston & Co. Ltd. v. Corry.⁵ I will read a rather larger passage which provides the context. Lord James said:

In the present case, the judge, in the course of his judgment, said:

and later he concluded, in the plaintiff’s favour, that what she had done, or not done, on June 20 was not sufficiently grave to justify dismissal.

With all respect to the judge, I think that his proposition is not justified in the form in which he stated it. I think it is not right to say that one act of disobedience, to justify dismissal, must be of a grave and serious character. I do, however, think (following the passages which I have already cited) that one act of disobedience or misconduct can justify dismissal only if it is of a nature which goes to show (in effect) that the servant is repudiating the contract, or one of its essential conditions; and for that reason, therefore, I think that you find in the passages I have read that the disobedience must at least have the quality that it is “wilful”: it does (in other words) connote a deliberate flouting of the essential contractual conditions.

If I have stated correctly the basis of the law to be applied, let me return to the facts of this case. I do not narrate again the circumstances in the chairman’s room on the afternoon of June 20, 1958. But the plaintiff said:

I have no doubt that the judge (who saw the witnesses) believed her: for, in the final paragraph of his judgment, he said:

As I have said, I take it (and no ground for a contrary view has been put to us) that the judge did accept her as a witness of truth. The situation was plainly one which was as embarrassing as it was unpleasant for her; and in the circumstances, with her immediate superior walking out and asking her to follow, I am satisfied that it cannot be said that her conduct[1959] 1 WLR 698 at 702did amount to such a lawful disobedience of an order, such a deliberate disregard of the conditions of service, as justified the employer. in saying “I accept your repudiation: I treat the contract as ended: I summarily dismiss you.”

I am a little comforted, I must say, by the circumstance that, when Mr. Campbell wrote his letter on Monday, June 23, he did, after all, refer to Mr. Brittain’s remark “You stay where you are,” not as an order, but as a “request.” It was in truth not really an order related to her duties as advertisement representative: it was a wise direction for him to have given in order to try to create out of disorder something more seemly in his room on the afternoon in question.

For those reasons, though I have, as I say, felt that the judge in his brief statement may not quite correctly have stated the law to be applied, and to that extent I accept the argument put to us by Mr. Stable, none the less in the end I come — and I come, I must say, unhesitatingly — to the same conclusion as the judge; and would dismiss the appeal.

LORD JENKINS. I agree; and cannot usefully add anything.

WILLMER L.J. I also agree.

E. D.

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[Unlawful Dismissal] Laws v London Chronicle

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