Judge Rejects Firm’s Claim For Injunction Against Ministers

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31378, 25 May 1967, Page 10

Judge Rejects Firm’s Claim For Injunction Against Ministers

(N.Z. Press Association)

WELLINGTON, May 23. An injunction sought by a firm of housing contractors against two Ministers of the Crown and a senior public servant to restrain them from acting in pursuance of an alleged conspiracy to injure the company was refused by Mr Justice Haslam in a judgment delivered in the Supreme Court today.

The plaintiff, P.T.Y. Homes, Ltd., Putaruru, sought the injuction against Thomas Philip Shand, Minister of Labour, Percy Benjamin Allen, Minister of Works, and John Victor Jebson, Director of the Housing Division of the Ministry of Works. At the hearing Mr J. H. Dunn, with him Mr G. P. Barton, appeared for the plaintiff and the Solicitor-General (Mr J. C. White. Q.C.), with him Mr G. S. Orr, for the defendants. “In the course of its extensive operation the plaintiff has successfully tendered over a period and has carried out its obligations under a labouronly system,” hiS Honour said. “It alleges that Mr W. F. Molyneux, secretary of the Carpenters’ Union, has opposed this method of conducting business on the plaintiff’s part and that during November, 1962, and in the following year he endeavoured by threats of industrial action to prevent the plaintiff from operating in this manner. “In December, 1964, the third defendant awarded to the plaintiff certain contracts for the erection at Turangi of houses which were required by the Department of Electricity as part of the Tongariro power project. It alleges that Mr Molyneux thereupon sought the assistance of the Federation of Labour in his endeavour to compel the plaintiff to engage its staff on a wages basis. “The next allegations concern industrial trouble at Marsden Point. It appears that objections to the engagement

of contract labour in the construction of houses at this site led certain members of the Carpenters’ Union to cease work on other jobs at Marsden Point, but in the meantime the plaintiff continued at Turangi to construct houses by the labour-only method .

“Paragraph 16 (of the statement of claim) reads that the two defendant ministers “entered into the said conspiracy and submitted to the said intimidation for the purpose of avoiding their duty to enforce the provisions of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act and for the purpose of obtaining a respite from industrial disturbances prior to the general elections which were then pending. “Paragraph 17 states that

in entering into such conspiracy each of the defendents unlawfully conspired with Messrs Molyneux and Russ (secretary of the Auckland branch of the union) to injure the plaintiff in its trade of business, well knowing that the prohibition of labour-only contracting at Turangi would cause material damage and loss to the plaintiff.

“The plaintiff expressly declined to join Messrs Malyneux and Russ as defendants and while I was concerned about-their interests at the outset, I considered that in the circumstances there was no justification for their being put to the expense of appearance before the Court unless one side applied for their joinder in the action. “At times the names of persons may be mentioned, even in a derogatory manner, in litigation which attracts public attention, and when such parties are not before the Court, they are powerless to speak in explanation of selfdefence. “It may be cold comfort to anyone in such a situation to be informed that a judicial review of the conduct of absent parties is after all a price that has to be paid for a system of justice administered in open Court.

“I can, however, give more solid consolation to Messrs Molyneux and Russ if 1 state now that in my view of the facts neither has been demonstrated to have committed an actionable tort of any kind. “In ordinary speech the word ‘intimidation’ suggests influencing another by fear to adapt a course of conduct and in law the term has been used to embrace either a case where the plaintiff himself has been intimidated and so compelled by the defendant to act to his own detriment, or has been injured because the defendant, by intimidating a third party, has forced the latter to act to the hurt of the plaintiff. “The allegation here suggests that Messrs Molyneux and Russ Intimidated the defendants into a conspiracy and that the last-mentioned parties were the victims of such coercion.

“No authority was cited to me to support a cause of action resting upon such a curious combination of primary elements and I shall be surprised if such a decision can be found. “I find no reason whatever for concluding that the defendants or any of them were in any respect actuated by fear of anyone else,” his Honour said.