Quinn v Leathem (1901)

Three years earlier, in Allen v Flood [1898] AC 1, the House of Lords had held that a trade union official who caused workmen to be discharged was not liable, even if he acted from a bad motive. After that decision it was argued that trade unions could lawfully organise a boycott against a trader who employed non-union men. Quinn v Leathem rejected that argument. It held that a combination of persons acting to injure a man in his trade — and not to advance their own legitimate interests — commits an actionable wrong, and that Allen v Flood, a case of a single person pursuing his own interest, did not decide otherwise.

It is the foundation of the tort of conspiracy to injure, and is also a leading authority that knowingly interfering with contracts without justification is actionable (approving Lumley v Gye). It is equally famous for Lord Halsbury's statement of how precedents must be read.

Henry Leathem had carried on business as a butcher at Lisburn, near Belfast, for over twenty years. One of his regular customers was Andrew Munce, a Belfast butcher, who bought from him twenty or thirty pounds' worth of meat each week. Leathem employed several assistants, none of them members of a union.

The defendants — Quinn, the treasurer, with the president, the secretary and two members of The Belfast Journeymen Butchers and Assistants' Association — had a rule that members would not work with non-union men. In July 1895 Leathem attended a meeting of the society and offered to pay all fines and dues so that his men could be admitted. The society refused, resolved that his men should be put out of his employment and "walk the streets for twelve months", and told him his meat would be stopped at Munce's shop if he did not comply.

The society then told Munce it would instruct his employees "to cease work immediately Leathem's beef arrives", and Munce stopped taking Leathem's meat, to Leathem's substantial loss. Defendants also published "black lists" naming Leathem and those who dealt with him, and induced one assistant, Dickie, to leave without notice, in breach of his contract, on a promise that the society would pay him.

At the Belfast Assizes in 1896 before FitzGibbon L.J. and a special jury, the jury found that the defendants had wrongfully and maliciously induced Leathem's customers and servants not to deal with him, and had maliciously conspired to do so. It assessed damages at £200. The defendants called no evidence. The Court of Appeal in Ireland upheld the verdict, with the Chief Baron dissenting on the ground that Allen v Flood had changed the law. Quinn appealed to the House of Lords.

1. Did Allen v Flood make it lawful for a combination of persons to injure a trader by inducing his customers and servants not to deal with him?
2. Does a conspiracy to injure, resulting in damage, give rise to civil liability?
3. Was Lumley v Gye rightly decided — is knowingly inducing a breach of contract without justification actionable?
4. Did the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875 protect the defendants?

The appeal was dismissed with costs. The verdict for Leathem stood.

How to read Allen v Flood (Earl of Halsbury L.C.)

Lord Halsbury laid down two propositions. First, "every judgment must be read as applicable to the particular facts proved, or assumed to be proved". Second, "a case is only an authority for what it actually decides. I entirely deny that it can be quoted for a proposition that may seem to follow logically from it." That reasoning, he said, assumes the law is a logical code, "whereas every lawyer must acknowledge that the law is not always logical at all."

Allen v Flood had been decided on the hypothesis that there was no threat and "no case of conspiracy or even combination" — only the independent action of a single man. Here there was "conspiracy, threats, and threats carried into execution". Without a remedy on such facts, "it could hardly be said that our jurisprudence was that of a civilized community".

Conspiracy to injure is actionable

Lord Macnaghten asked: "Does a conspiracy to injure, resulting in damage, give rise to civil liability?" He answered that there was authority for it and that it "is founded in good sense." "A man may resist without much difficulty the wrongful act of an individual." But "it is a very different thing (as Lord FitzGerald observes) when one man has, to defend himself against many combined to do him wrong."

Lord Shand stated the distinction from Allen v Flood "in a single sentence": there the defendant's purpose was to promote his own trade interest, "whereas in the present case, while it is clear there was combination, the purpose of the defendants was "to injure the plaintiff in his trade as distinguished from the intention of legitimately advancing their own interests."" The defendants had "no such defence as legitimate trade competition"; they acted "not for any purpose of advancing their own interests as workmen, but for the sole purpose of injuring the plaintiff in his trade."

Inducing breach of contract

Lord Macnaghten held that Lumley v Gye was rightly decided, "not on the ground of malicious intention" but "on the ground that a violation of legal right committed knowingly is a cause of action". Interfering with contractual relations recognised by law without sufficient justification is a violation of legal right.

No justification (Lord Lindley)

The defendants "were dictating to the plaintiff and his customers and servants what they were to do." "What is the legal justification or excuse for such conduct? None is alleged, and none can be found." The damage was "not remote, but immediate and intended. The intention to injure the plaintiff negatives all excuses and disposes of any question of remoteness of damage." To accept the appellant's argument would be to hold "that boycotting by trades unions in one of its most objectionable forms is lawful".

No trade dispute; the 1875 Act

Lord Macnaghten found "there was no trade dispute at all. Leathem had no difference with his men." The provision of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875 that certain combinations are not "indictable as a conspiracy" had "nothing to do with civil remedies."

A combination of two or more persons to injure a man in his trade, by inducing his customers and servants not to deal with him, is actionable if damage results and the purpose of the combination is to injure him rather than legitimately to advance the combiners' own interests. Allen v Flood, which concerned a single person acting in his own interest without combination, does not decide otherwise. Knowingly inducing a breach of contract without sufficient justification is also actionable.

• Direct question: Explain the tort of conspiracy. How did Quinn v Leathem distinguish Allen v Flood? Give Lord Shand's single-sentence distinction and Lord Macnaghten's reason why combination matters.
• Problem question: a group combines to cut off a trader's customers and staff, not to protect their own trade interests but to punish him. Apply Quinn: conspiracy to injure, actionable on proof of damage.
• Point worth marks: Lord Halsbury's two propositions on precedent — a judgment is read on its facts, and a case is authority only for what it actually decides. They are quoted well beyond the law of torts.
• Cross-reference: inducing breach of contract (Lumley v Gye, approved here); interference with trade; damnum sine injuria — Lord Lindley called this "a case, not of damnum absque injuria, but of damnum cum injuria".