the workmen were discharged for the bona
fide resson that supplies were cut down or
whether they were discharged because the
company ‘vere not willing to accede to their
demands is, in my opinion, immaterial. If
there was a trade dispute it can, in my
opinion, be referred to the tribunal whether
or not the dispute has resulted in workraen
being dismissed or in their having discharged
themselves. The object of the regulation
is stated to be for preventing work being
interrupted by trade disputes. If the em-
ployer locked out his workmen with a view
to obliging them to submit to the terms
which he wished to impose or the workmen
struck in an endeavour to secure their
demands, there would be, undoubtedly, a
trade dispute. True it is that, unless notice
was given to the workmen on strike or who
were locked out, the contract of service
would not determine unless and until notice
was given, but because dismissal is super-
imposed on a dispute which has existed up
to the moment of dismissal it does not seem
to me to prevent the dispute being referred,
because the dismissal of the workmen in no
way settled the dispute which had hitherto
existed. Supposing a dispute arose whether
the workers in a particular industry or
branch of an industry could be, as the
employers contended, dismissed at an hour’s
notice or whether they were entitled, as the
workers contended, to a week’s notice. There
you would have a dispute connected with the
terms of employment. It appears to me clear
that an employer could not avoid a reference
by the Minister if the matter was reported
to him by discharging his workmen and
saying: “They are no longer in my service,
whether I rightly or wrongly diamissed
them.” If an employer discharges his work-
men witheut proper notice, although the
workmen would have an action tor wrongful
dismissal, they are not from the moment of
discharge in the employer’s service, but if
the contention advanced by the employers
in this case be right the question of what
notice workers in this industry or this factory
should be given could not be settled by the
tribunal. In my opinion, there was here
a dispute which the Minister could refer to
the tribunal and on which the tribunal could
adjudicate.”

Each of these cases is, I think, easily dis-
tinguishable from the case with which we are
now dealing. In Lyons v. Wilkins thee was no
dispute or difference between the person picketed
and any of the people who were working or had
worked for him. ‘The same can be said of
Quinn v. Leathem. In Doran v. Lennon the
circumstances were peculiar; the employees’
employment was terminated by their own wilful
breach of contract, and the picketing that was
started several months later was not in further-
ance of the dispute which had caused the men

to strike. Overend, J.’s dictum, quoted above,
was Clearly limited to “every employee....... icv
who broke his contract’? and was so dismissed
for cause. In Le parte Crowther §& Co. Ltd.
(which, incidentally, was also cited by Mr.
Barrow, contra) a trade dispute was held to
exist over differences between the employees
and the company that arose long before and
down to the date of the dismissal; it seems to me
that Lord Goddard’s remarks were not intended
to apply to a case such as this; if they were,
they would, anyhow, have to be treated as obiter,
in view of the issues then before the Court.
“Tt is an abuse of authorities to extract from
judgments general statements of the law made
in relation to the facts and circumstances of
particular cases and treat them as concluding
cases in which the facts and circumstances are
entirely different and which raise questions to
which their authors were not directing their
minds at all” (Martell v. Cousett Iron Company,
1955, 2 W.LR. 468, per Jenkins L.J). This
same principle was emphasised by Lord Halsbury
in one of the very cases cited by Mr. Harney—
Quinn v. Leathem (supra)-—where he said, at
p- 506 of the report, “every judgment must be
read as applicable to the particular facts proved,
or assumed to be proved, since the generality of
the expressions which may be found there are
not intended to be expositions of the whole law,
but governed and qualified by the particular
facts of the case in which such expressions are
to be found........... .a case is only authority for
what it decides. | entirely deny that it can be
quoted for a proposition that may seem to
follow logically from it.”

In the instant case, Miss Winter had served
as a clerk at O’Neal’s Drug Store for six years;
throughout that period the only leave sl.e had was
two weeks; she was promised long leave early in
1955 but it. was postponed indefinitely by Miss
Gertrude O’Neal owing to the latter’: illness, and
the leave was never granted. When Miss Winter
was being dismissed on 11th June, 1955, she was
not given the opportunity of refuting or explaining
any of the things which caused Miss O’Neal to be
dissatisfied with her. As regards the failure to
give Miss Winter reasons for dismissing her, Miss
O’Neal admitted in evidence: ‘ There could have
been a possibility that she could have gone to the
Union; that is among my reasons for not communi-
cating the matter to Miss Winter.” In the event,
Miss Winter did go to the Union, and on the very
next working day the Union’s representative
visited Miss UO’ Neal and complained—about what ?—
about a difference over nn act done by Miss O’Neal,
as employer, against Miss Winter, as employee, on
11th June, when Miss Winter was yet at work,
relative to her non-employment thereafter. Miss
Winter cannot, in my opinion, be said to have
acquiesced in what was done on 11th June, or to
have forfeited any rights or claims, simply because
she failed to protest or make a scence the moment
Miss O’Neal spoke to her and handed her a week’s

pay in lieu of notice; she is a member of a trade