Roundabout Ltd v Beirne and Others

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 15 January 1959
• Date: 15 January 1959
• Court: High Court

The Roundabout Ltd. v. Beirne and Others

THE ROUNDABOUT LIMITED

Plaintiffs

and

WALTER H. BEIRNE, THOMAS COX, COLM MURPHY and GERALD GORBY

Defendants.

Trade union - Trade dispute - Dispute between employers and workmen - Peaceful picketing of licensed premises - Employers having leased licensed premises to limited company - Limited company comprising employers among its directors - Licensed premises not taken over by limited company as a going concern - Re-opening of premises for business by limited company - Continuance of picketing by workmen - Whether trade dispute attached to premises as occupied by limited company - Entire work of licensed premises done by directors of limited company - Whether limited company employers - Whether trade dispute in existence - Injunction - Trade Disputes Act, 1906 (6 Edw. 7, c. 47), ss. 2 and 5.

The owners of licensed premises, having closed the premises in circumstances giving rise to a trade dispute with the defendants, leased the premises with an option to purchase to the plaintiff company, the directors of which were the owners, their accountant, and three barmen. When the licensed premises were subsequently re-opened for business by the plaintiff company, the entire work of the premises was carried out by the directors themselves, no person being employed by them. The barman-directors were paid a fixed yearly sum by way of directors' remuneration, which was paid at such irregular intervals and in such irregular proportions as was found convenient. The defendants, who had been picketing the premises throughout the period that they were closed, continued to picket the premises subsequent to their re-opening. In an action for, inter alia, an injunction to restrain the defendants from watching, besetting or picketing the plaintiffs' premises it was

Held by Dixon J. that, as the plaintiff company was a legal entity distinct from the owners which had not taken over the licensed premises from the owners as a going concern, the trade dispute with the owners did not attach to the premises as occupied by the plaintiff company.

Ferguson v O'Gorman and Others [1937] I. R. 620 distinguished.

Held further that, in any event, the plaintiff company, having so far employed no staff, could not be held to be "employers" within the meaning of the provisions of s. 5 of the Trade Disputes Act, 1906. There was accordingly no trade dispute in existence between the parties, and the picketing should be restrained.

Witness Action.

A limited company, known as the Marian Park Inn Ltd., the three directors of which were Patrick Moran, his wife, Dympna Moran, and his brother, Michael Moran, carried on the business of a licensed vintner and publican at No. 65 Ardcullen Avenue, Artane, in the City of Dublin, employing, among others, Colm Murphy and Gerald Gorby, the two last-named defendants. Up to the month of May, 1958, none of the staff of the Marian Park Inn Ltd. had been members of the Irish National Union of Vintners', Grocers' and Allied Trades' Assistants, of which the first-named defendants, Walter H. Beirne and Thomas Cox, were general secretary and chairman, respectively, but in that month all of the staff joined the Union. On the 7th November, 1958, the staff were given a week's notice, terminating their employment as from the 14th November, and were informed that the premises were being closed on that date. On the 12th November, 1958, the defendant, Walter H. Beirne, wrote on behalf of the executive committee of the Union to the Marian Park Inn Ltd...