Deighan v Same Defendants

JurisdictionIreland
Judgment Date17 December 1944
Date17 December 1944
CourtHigh Court
McLoughlin v. G. S. Railways
MICHAEL McLOUGHLIN
Plaintiff
and
THE GREAT SOUTHERN RAILWAYS COMPANY
Defendants
and
JAMES DEIGHAN
Plaintiff
and
SAME
Defendants.

Master and servant - Employees of railway company - Conditions of employment - Agreement between railway company and trade union in pursuance of Railways Act, 1924, s. 55, sub-s. 1 - Employees excepted from liability to insurance under Unemployment Insurance Acts, 1920, and amending Acts - Summary dismissal on payment of one week's wages in lieu of notice - Restriction on right of railway company to dispense with service of employee - Railways Act, 1924 (No. 29 of 1924), s. 55 - Unemployment Insurance Act, 1920 (10 & 11 Geo. 5, c. 30), s. 1, Sch. I, Part II, cl. (d) (iii) -Unemployment Insurance Act, 1921 (11 Geo. 5, c. 1), s. 8, Sch. II.

Witness Actions.

These were two actions brought against the Great Southern Railways Company, in each of which the plaintiff claimed damages for wrongful dismissal from the defendants' employment as goods porter permanently appointed to the Company's staff, and for breach of contract of employment between each plaintiff and the defendants. The actions were tried together.

The facts have been summarised in the head-note, and appear sufficiently for the purpose of this report from the judgment of Maguire P. post.

Sect. 55, sub-s. 1, of the Railways Act, 1924, enacts that "From and after the passing of this Act the rates of pay, hours of duty, and other conditions of service of railway employees shall be regulated in accordance with agreements made or to be from time to time made between the trade unions representative of such employees of the one part and the railway companies and other persons by whom they are respectively employed of the other part." In pursuance of that sub-section an agreement, known as a Scheme for Establishing Machinery of Negotiation for Ireland, was entered into between a number of trade unions, including the National Union of Railwaymen, (of which the plaintiffs were members), and a number of railway companies, including the defendant Company, whereby an agreed procedure was laid down for the determination of disputes arising between the Company and its employees.

By para. (d) (iii) of Part II of the First Schedule to the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1920, as amended by s. 8 and Sch. II of the Unemployment Insurance Act 1921, it is provided that the persons excepted, by virtue of s. 1 of the Act of 1920, from the obligation to be insured against unemployment shall include inter alios, persons employed in the service of any railway company where the Minister for Industry and Commerce certifies that the employment is, in his opinion, having regard to the normal practice of the employer, permanent in character, that the employed person has completed three years service in the employment, and that the other circumstances of the employment in his opinion make it unnecessary that he should be insured under the Act.

The defendant Company, in pursuance of the above provisions, obtained from time to time certificates of exemption with respect to certain of its employees, including the plaintiffs, for the purpose of obtaining which it gave to the Minister for Industry and Commerce an undertaking in writing that, on retrenchment of staff for reasons other than misconduct or unfitness to perform or neglect in the performance of duties, any employee so excepted would not be discharged from the service of the company while any non-excepted (i.e., insured) person of the class to which such excepted employee belonged was retained in the employment of the Company.

By a further agreement made between the defendant Company and the said National Union of Railwaymen it was agreed inter alia...

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