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October 4, 1967 Damages — Personal Injuries — Quantum — Loss of eye — Police constable's left eye removed as result of road accident — Conventional minimum standard in 1967.

Civil wrongdoings with consequent financial and other loss or damage to employers, employees and third parties may result in the course of various trade union activities. These day to day trade union activities take a variety of forms. The most common ones are inducement of breach of contract, conspiracy, trespass, nuisance, and intimidation. Each of these activities constitutes a tort which, unless the statutory immunities apply, would normally give rise at common law to an action for damages or, as is more frequent, enable the aggrieved party to obtain an injunction.

November 14, 1969 Contract — Construction — Supply of gas — Indemnity — Consumers to indemnify gas board against claims for injury or damage “caused by any action … of the consumers, their servants or agents whether arising directly or indirectly out of the supply of any gas or apparatus” — Escape of gas from faulty main — Explosion touched off by act of consumers' employee — Negligence — Board mainly liable v Whether entitled to be indemnified for own negligence.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

Phillips, J. has drawn the distinction between wrongful dismissal at common law and unfair dismissal under statute. He points out the considerable difference which exists between the position at common law and the position under statute. “The common law” he says “is concerned merely with the contractual relationship between the parties, whereas a complaint of unfair dismissal…is concerned with the statutory right of an employee not to be unfairly dismissed.” There thus exists a fundamental difference between the two concepts, both of which are in their different circumstances important. In this monograph, it is proposed to treat the common law of wrongful dismissal. Statutory unfair dismissal will be the subject of discussion in a future monograph.

Think tank dynamo Russell L. Ackoff advocates that managers scrap the way they normally approach problem solving in general and innovation in particular. He champions a process called “synthetic” thinking, a way of thinking about and designing a system that derives the properties and behavior of its parts from the functions required of the whole. His suggestions to managers for promoting creativity, innovation and better strategy are: (1) By understanding what’s happening inside and outside the organization, then by developing a vision of what the organization could be within the emerging culture and environment. Next by preparing a strategy for reaching or moving closer to that vision. (2) Through designs that lead require creativity. Creativity involves a three‐step process. The first step is to identify assumptions that you make which prevent you from seeing the alternatives to the ones that you currently see. These are self‐imposed constraints. The second step is to deny these constraining assumptions. The third is to explore the consequences of the denials. Creativity of individuals can be enhanced by practice, particularly under the guidance of one who is creative. (3) By becoming aware of the nature of the fundamental intellectual transformations now taking place and what their implications are for the future of business and management generally. And by attaching themselves to people who show creative thinking and engage with them in the process of redesigning, from scratch and with no constraints, the systems they manage.

January 27, 1970 Mines Quarry — Dangerous machinery — Moveable bar on tractor — Four‐inch nip when bar fully raised — Tractor being removed from pit by attaching dragline to bar — Slip by employee trapping foot in nip — Whether a “dangerous” exposed part of machinery — Whether duty to fence — Dragline not long enough to reach if tractor on level ground — Tractor backed short way up slope of pit — Whether failure to provide longer dragline breach of statutory or common law duty — Mines and Quarries Act, 1954 (2 & 3 Eliz.II, c.70), ss. 82(1), 115.

July 19, 1966 Master and Servant — Wrongful dismissal — Damages — Service agreement for annual salary and “such bonus (if any) as the directors … shall determine” — Employee not to invest in competing company without consent of employer — Bonus scheme ended after dismissal of employee — Higher salaries negotiated with employees — Whether future bonus or possible increase in salary to be taken into account — Employee's investment in competitive company — Employment by other company in which employee held shares — Increase in value of shares — Whether credit to be given for increased value of shares and investment in competitive company.

December 17, 1968 Trade dispute — Act in furtherance of — Procuring breach of contract — Inter‐union rivalry in hotel industry — Picketing hotel employing no members of union — Interference with oil contracts — Force majeure clause in oil contract — Whether in contemplation or furtherance of “trade dispute” — Whether torts by or on behalf of trade union restrainable by injunction — Trade Disputes Act, 1906 (6 Edw. VII, c. 47), ss. 3, 4(1), 5(3).

December 19, 1969 Redundancy — Dismissal — Employer's work in one place terminating — Invitation to employees to move to new factory — Employees declining to work elsewhere — Terms of offer — Whether repudiation of contracts by employer — Whether employees entitled to terminate contracts — Whether employees “dismissed” — Redundancy Payments Act, 1965 (c.62), ss. 1, 3(1)(a),(c).