Chap. VI. SECTION X.-NUISANCES CONNECTED WITH TRADE DISPUTES. Ir seems that at common law a conspiracy or combination The old law of conspiracy. to raise wages was an indictable offence (f); and various statutes were passed prior to 1824 expressly prohibiting combinations or conspiracies on the part of workmen to raise wages or shorten the hours of labour (9). By an Act passed in 1824 the combination laws were repealed; but in the following year this Act was itself repealed and the common law of conspiracy was restored (with certain exceptions in favour of meetings to discuss the rate of wages), and penalties were imposed for intimidation and molestation (h). The Trade Union Act, 1871 (i), provides that the purposes Trade Union of any trade union shall not, by reason merely that they are in restraint of trade, be deemed unlawful so as to render any member liable to prosecution for conspiracy, or so as to render void any agreement or trust. The Act provides for the registration of trade unions, and enables any trade union to hold a limited amount of land and to deal with the same, and vests all the real and personal estate of a trade union in its trustees. The Act enables the trustees of a trade union, if authorised by its rules, to bring or defend proceedings concerning the property of the trade union. Act, 1871. Protection of The Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875 (k), Conspiracy and provides that an agreement or combination by two or more Property Act, persons to do, or procure to be done, any act in furtherance 1875. of a trade dispute between employers and workmen shall not be indictable as a conspiracy, if such act, if committed by one person, would not be punishable as a crime (1). This Act provides (m), however, that every person who, with a view to compel any other person to abstain from doing or to do any act which such other person has a legal right to do (f) Macdonell on Master and Servant, 597. (g) Macdonell, 596; Ency. of Laws of England, vol. 12, p. 236. (h) Ency. of Laws of England, K.I. vol. 12, p. 236. (i) 34 & 35 Vict. c. 31. 16 Chap. VI. Intimidation or abstain from doing, wrongfully uses violence or intimidates such other person or his wife or children, or injures his and picketing. property, or watches or besets the house or other place where such other person resides or works or carries on business or happens to be, or the approach to such house or place, shall be liable to a penalty or imprisonment. But attending at or near the house or other place where another person resides or works or carries on business or happens to be, in order merely to obtain or communicate information, is not to be deemed a "watching" or "besetting" within the section. Picketing. The above statutes clearly recognise the legality of strikes and lock-outs up to a certain point; but it is still illegal to use force or threats of violence to prevent others from working on such terms as they think proper (n). Picketing is an annoyance, and if damage results is an actionable nuisance at common law (o); but where strictly confined to obtaining or communicating information, it is protected by the proviso in sect. 7 of the Act of 1875. The picketing of the works or place of business of an employer for the purpose of persuading people, whether masters or men, not to work for him, is a "watching or besetting" with a view wrongfully and illegally to compel persons to abstain from doing a lawful act within the meaning of sect. 7 of the Act of 1875, and is not within the proviso to that section (p). To watch or beset a man's house with a view to compel him to do or not to do that which it is lawful for him not to do or to do, is, unless some reasonable justification for it is consistent with the evidence, a wrongful act, because (1) it is an offence within sect. 7 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875, and (2) because it is a nuisance at common law for which an action on the case would lie, for such conduct seriously interferes with the ordinary comfort of human existence and the ordinary enjoyment of the house beset (q). (n) Quinn v. Leathem, (1901) (p) J. Lyons and Sons v. Wilkins, v. Green, (1899) 2 Ch. 702, 703. (9) J. Lyons and Sons v. Wilkins, (1899) 1 Ch. 255 (C. A.), per Lindley, M.R., and Chitty, L.J. Watching or besetting a place where a person "resides or works or carries on business or happens to be" within the Act (r) does not necessarily imply any lengthened watching, and is not limited to places habitually frequented by the workman thus picketed (s). In a recent case in which during the pendency of a strike two agents of a trade union attended at a landing stage to await the arrival of a steamer containing workmen imported by the masters from Ireland to replace the men on strike, and on the arrival of the steamer informed the Irish workmen of the strike and offered to pay their expenses if they would go elsewhere to work, it was held that the attendance at the landing stage was with a view to compel the masters to conduct their business in accordance with the requirements of the union and was not in order merely to communicate information, and an interlocutory injunction was granted against the officers of the union (t). 1 Chap. VI. with a man in A trader has the right, in all matters not contrary to law, to Interference regulate his own mode of carrying on his trade, and any the carrying on invasion of this right is a legal wrong (u). The Trade Union of his trade. Acts have not conferred upon any association or any member of it a licence to obstruct or interfere with the freedom of any other person in carrying on his business or bestowing his labour in the way he thinks fit, provided only that it is lawful (x). It has been laid down that a combination of two or more persons without justification or excuse to injure a man in his trade by inducing his customers or servants to break their contracts with him, or not to deal with him, or not to continue in his employment, is, if it results in damage to such trader, actionable (y). The words "trade dispute between employers and workmen" (r) 38 & 39 Vict. c. 86. (s) Charnock v. Court, (1899) 2 Ch. 35; Walters v. Green, (1899) 2 Ch. 696. (t) Charnock v. Court, (1899) 2 Ch. 35; Walters v. Green, (1899) 2 Ch. 696, 703. But see Glamorgan Coal Co. v. South Wales Miners' Federation, 87 L. T. 232. (u) Hilton v. Eckersley, 6 El. & Chap VI. Defamatory circulars. A trade union may be sued. in sect. 3 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875, do not include a dispute upon trade union matters between workmen who are members of a trade union and an employer of non-union workmen who refuses to employ the members of a trade union (z). The Court will restrain by injunction circulars and notices being sent out containing statements injurious to plaintiff's trade where the Court is satisfied that such statements are false (a). In a recent case it was held that several members of an association of master builders might join as co-plaintiffs in an action against the officials of various trade unions, the right to relief arising out of the same series of transactions and there being a common question of law and fact (b). It has been decided by the House of Lords that a trade union registered under the Acts of 1871 and 1876 may be sued (like an incorporated company) in its registered name (c). SECTION XI.-VARIOUS NUISANCES. OTHER cases of nuisance which have been brought before the Court are nuisances to the sea-shore (d); to a private siding of a railway (e); to a right of stallage (ƒ); to ground dedicated to public recreation (g); nuisances by the construction of a railway (h); damage to the crops of a market gardener (i); injury (z) Quinn v. Leathem, (1901) A. C. 495. (a) Collard v. Marshall, (1892) 1 Ch. 571; Trollope v. London Building Trades Federation, W. N. (1895) pp. 29, 45; 72 L. T. 342. Cf. Ajello v. Worsley, (1898) 1 Ch. 274. (b) Walters v. Green, (1899) 2 Ch. 696. (c) Taff Vale Railway Co. v. Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, (1901) A. C. 426. (d) Corporation of Hastings V. Ivall, 19 Eq. 558; Llandudno Urban District Council v. Woods, (1899) 2 Ch. 705. (e) Bell v. Midland Railway Co., 3 D. & J. 673, 10 C. B. N. S. 287. (f) Ellis v. Corporation of Bridgnorth, 2 J. & H. 67. (g) Att.-Gen. v. Mayor of Southampton, 1 Giff. 363. (h) Great North of England Railway Co. v. Clarence Railway Co., 1 Coll. 507; London and Birmingham Railway Co. v. Grand Junction Canal Co., 1 Ra. Ca. 224. (i) Broadbent v. Imperial Gas Co., 7 D. M. & G. 436, 7 H. L. C. 600. The injury to trees or crops from smoke and vapours must be actual, substantial, and visible, such as would entitle the plaintiff to recover damages in an action. Contingent, to trees from brick-kilns (k); or iron works (); injury to land from the smoke of copper works (m); injury to gas mains and pipes under a highway from steam rollers (n); tipping rock or rubbish on land (o); allowing one's land to become a nuisance by leaving the same vacant and unprotected, so that persons are able to deposit filth upon the same (p); a nuisance caused by a tramway company's clearing its lines of snow, heaping the same at the sides of the streets and scattering salt thereon (q). A nuisance to a churchyard comes properly within the cognizance of the Ecclesiastical Courts (r). In Woodman v. Robinson (s) a bill was filed by a single parishioner against some of the churchwardens of a parish to restrain them from warming the church in a manner which he alleged to be injurious to health. Lord Cranworth considered it doubtful whether it was a public nuisance, and whether such a bill could be sustained by a single parishioner; but it was not necessary to decide the point (t). prospective, or remote damage will not give a right to an injunction : Salvin v. Brancepeth Coal Co., 9 Ch. 705. See St. Helens Smelting Co. v. Tipping, 11 H. L. C. 650. (k) Beardmore v. Tredwell, 3 Giff. 683. (1) Shott's Iron Co. v. Inglis, 7 App. Ca. 528. (m) Tipping v. St. Helens Smelting Co., 1 Ch. 66. (n) Gas Light and Coke Co. v. Vestry of St. Mary Abbotts, 15 Q. B. D. 1. (0) Arnold v. Furness Railway Co., 22 W. R. 613. (p) Att. - Gen. V. Tod-Heatley, (1897) 1 Ch. 560 (C. A.). (q) Ogston v. Aberdeen District Tramways Co., (1897) A. C. 111. (r) Large v. Alton, Cro. Jac. 462; Wenmouth v. Collins, 2 Lord Raym. 850; Wilson v. M Math, 2 B. & Ald. 241, 3 Phill. 89; Buxton v. Calcot, Cade v. Newenham, 3 Phill. 91; Earl Fitzwilliam v. Moore, 3 Ir. Eq. 615. (8) 2 Sim. N. S. 204. (t) See as to acts in nature of waste in the churchyard, ante, pp. 64, 65. Chap. VI. Sect. 11. |