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Gibson v Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers

Weekly Law Reports Cited authorities 3 Cited in 21 Precedent Map Related
JurisdictionEngland & Wales
Year1968
Date1968
CourtChancery Division
[CHANCERY DIVISION] GIBSON v. UNION OF SHOP, DISTRIBUTIVE AND ALLIED WORKERS [1966 G. No. 3417] 1968 Feb. 22, 23 BUCKLEY J.

Trade Union - Suspension of member - Right of action - Declaratory relief sought - Suspension period nearly over at the date of trial - Good ground of complaint when action instituted involving substantial legal issues - Discretionary power of the court to grant declaratory relief. - Practice - Declaratory judgment - Discretion - Substantiality of action unaffected by changes between issue of writ and trial.

On January 10, 1966, the branch committee of the South-West London branch of the defendant union, in exercise of its disciplinary powers, purported to expel the plaintiff from the union and passed a resolution to that effect. His appeal to the executive council of the union was allowed to the extent that the executive council substituted for the sentence of expulsion, suspension from office in the branch and from acting in any representative capacity on behalf of the union for a period of two years from March 13, 1966. An appeal against that decision was disallowed. The plaintiff claimed that the decision of the branch committee and both of the decisions of the executive council were ultra vires and void. He also sought an injunction restraining the defendants from acting on them. The two-year period of the suspension would come to an end three weeks from the date on which the trial opened; and the preliminary point was taken by the defendants (i) that no useful purpose could be served by trying the action because the only primary relief which was sought was declaratory relief and, because the end of the period of suspension was only three weeks away, no practical results would follow from declaring the suspension invalid; (ii) that consequently the case was not one in which the court ought to make a declaration or grant any such injunction as had been claimed.

Held, that if when the action had been instituted the plaintiff had, or might have had, a good ground of complaint, not of an academic character but involving substantial legal issues, he would not be disentitled from obtaining declaratory relief because, owing to the unavoidable lapse of time between the date when the writ was issued and the time when the action came on for trial, the relief sought had dwindled in importance or ceased to have practical implications; that on the facts the issue between the parties was not purely academic; that the disciplinary action taken against the plaintiff might affect him in his union in the future; and that...

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