Martin v Scottish Transport and General Workers Union
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Normand,Lord Reid,Lord Tucker,Lord Cohen |
| Judgment Date | 06 March 1952 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1952] UKHL J0306-1 |
| Date | 06 March 1952 |
| Court | House of Lords |
| Docket Number | No. 1. |
[1952] UKHL J0306-1
House of Lords
Lord Normand
Lord Reid
Lord Tucker
Lord Asquith of Bishopstone
Lord Cohen
Upon Report from the Appellate Committee, to whom was referred the Cause Martin against Scottish Transport and General Workers Union, that the Committee had heard Counsel, as well on Monday the 14th, as on Tuesday the 15th, days of January last, upon the Petition and Appeal of John Martin, of 39 Finsbay Street, Glasgow, S.W.I, praying, That the matter of the Interlocutor set forth in the Schedule thereto, namely, an Interlocutor of the Lords of Session in Scotland, of the First Division of the 23d of November 1950, so far as therein stated to be appealed against, might be reviewed before His Majesty the King, in His Court of Parliament, and that the said Interlocutor, so far as aforesaid, might be reversed, varied or altered, or that the Petitioner might have such other relief in the premises as to His Majesty the King, in His Court of Parliament, might seem meet; as also upon the printed Case of the Scottish Transport and General Workers Union, lodged in answer to the said Appeal; and due consideration had this day of what was offered on either side in this Cause:
It is Ordered and Adjudged, by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in the Court of Parliament of Her Majesty the Queen assembled, That the said Interlocutor of the 23d day of November 1950, in part complained of in the said Appeal, be, and the same is hereby, Affirmed, and that the said Petition and Appeal be, and the same is hereby, dismissed this House.
My Lords,
This appeal is, as the Lord President has said, of importance not only to the Appellant and to the Respondent Trade Union but also to a large group of Clyde dockers who are in the same position as the Appellant and whose membership of the Union is at stake equally with his.
The facts are set out in Condescendence II, and it is sufficient for the disposal of the Appeal to summarize them. The Appellant, who had previously been a dock worker in Glasgow but not a member of a trade union, received in August, 1940, a letter from the Defenders' Secretary requesting him to attend a meeting of the Glasgow Docks No. 1 Branch Committee which was to be held for the purpose of admitting new members to the Defenders' Trade Union. He attended the meeting, which took place on 19th August, 1940, and he expressed his willingness to join the Union. Thereupon an official of the Union presented to him for his signature a letter in these terms:—
"I hereby apply for membership of the Scottish Transport and General Workers Union, 27 Oswald Street, Glasgow, for the duration of the present War. I agree to be bound by all the rules of the said Union, and I admit, by my subscription hereto, that the Executive of the said Union shall be entitled to require me to forfeit my membership of the said Union, on or at any time, after the signing of an Armistice by His Majesty's Government".
The Appellant protested against being asked to sign the document, and he was told that it would not be used against him. He still protested but signed on being told that he could not be admitted a member unless he signed. The Appellant was then, according to his own averment, admitted a member of Glasgow Docks No. 1 Branch, having paid the usual member's entrance fee of £2 10s. 0d., and he received his member's badge, a copy of the rules of the Union and a contribution card. His name was entered in the Register of Members. From his admission on 19th August, 1940, till 1948 he continued to perform all the obligations and to enjoy all the advantages of a member of the Union. On 23rd June, 1948, the Defenders' Secretary wrote a letter to the Appellant informing him that his temporary membership of No. 1 Docks Branch had been revoked and that he would cease to be a member of the branch and of the Union on the 26th June, 1948. The letter intimated that the decision to terminate his membership was agreed to and ordered by the General Executive Council of the Union on the 24th May, 1948, in terms of a resolution and minute in accordance with the terms of the contract signed by the Appellant.
The Appellant, in July, 1948, raised the present action, concluding for a declarator that he was admitted a member of the Union on 17th August, 1940 (a mistake for 19th August, 1940), and for reduction of the resolution and order of the General Executive Council of 24th May, 1948.
The ground of the action is unambiguously averred in Condescendence II, where it is said that the Appellant's letter of 19th August, 1940, in so far as it required him to forfeit his membership after the signing of an Armistice, was invalid and illegal and ultra vires, as not being in accordance with the rules of the Union, because the rules provide for the forfeiture of membership only for failure to abide by the rules, and because there was at the material time no rule by which the conditions contained in the letter could be attached to the admission of a member. The Lord President aptly and accurately summarized the issue presented by the Record as a question "whether, without first altering their rules, the defenders had the power in 1940 to admit applicants to what I shall call 'war-time membership' by making a special bargain with them". The Respondents' criticism that the plea of ultra vires is technically inappropriate when the Trade Union has the power to authorize the act complained of if it first alters its rules has no merits, for fair notice was given of the true case made...
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