Labour Court in UK Law

This is an entirely different situation from the ordinary master and servant case; there, if the master wrongfully dismisses the servant, either summarily or by giving insufficient notice, the employment is effectively terminated, albeit in breach of contract. Here, the removal of the Plaintiff's name from the register being, in law, a nullity, he continued to have the right to be treated as a registered dock worker with all the benefits which, by statute, that status conferred on him.

This is not a straightforward relationship of master and servant. Normally, and apart from the intervention of statute, there would never be a nullity in terminating an ordinary contract of master and servant. Dismissal might be in breach of contract and so unlawful but could only sound in damages.

It is true that the severity of this rule is tempered by a discretion to allow the issue to be re-opened in subsequent proceedings when there are special circumstances in which it would cause injustice not to do so: see Arnold v National Westminster Bank plc [1991] 2 AC 93. As Lord Keith of Kinkel said (at p 109), the purpose of the estoppel is to work justice between the parties.

In para 17 it said that the concept of "worker" for the purposes of that article must be defined in accordance with the objective criteria which distinguish the employment relationship by reference to the rights and duties of the persons concerned, and that the essential feature of an employment relationship was that for a certain period of time a person performs services for and under the direction of another person in return for which he receives remuneration.

The question of what counts as knowledge for the purposes of liability for inducing a breach of contract has also been the subject of a consistent line of decisions. In Emerald Construction Co Ltd v Lowthian [1966] 1 WLR 691, union officials threatened a building contractor with a strike unless he terminated a sub-contract for the supply of labour.

Once it is accepted that the Court can make an appropriate allowance to a fiduciary for his skill and labour I do not see why, in principle, it should not be able to give him some part of the profit of the venture if it was thought that justice as between the parties demanded that. I find it impossible to believe that they did not make a significant contribution to Mr. O'Sullivan's success.

It was said that that precedent or analogy should be followed in this case. But in the ordinary case of master and servant the repudiation or the wrongful dismissal puts an end to the contract, and the contract having been wrongfully put an end to a claim for damages arises. The nature of the bargain is such that it can be nothing more.