Odger's English Common Law

562 ACTIONS FOR LOSS OF SERVICE, &C.
workmen, so that they leave their work, and the plaintiff
is thereby prevented from selling his goods. 1
Such menaces
may be open or disguised; they need not be threats of personal
violence—threats of serious annoyance and damage will be
sufficient—and they may be addressed either to the servant
himself or to his wife or even to his children ; " and in
considering whether coercion has been applied or not, numbers
cannot be disregarded." 2
So, too, an action will lie against
any one, who knowingly and without just cause or occasion
harbours the servant and takes him into his own employ
during the agreed term of service, whereby the master is
injured. 3
The rule is not restricted to menial or domestic
servants ; it applies to any one who has contracted for
personal service for a definite period and who during such
period has been wrongfully incited and procured to abandon
such service to the loss of the person whom he has contracted
to serve. For this injury an action is maintainable against
the wrong- doer, though the master may also have an action
against the servant for breach of contract.
A servant, on the other hand, may have an action for loss
of employment against any one, who without just cause or
occasion induces his master to dismiss him from his service.
This is not so unless the discharge by the master constitutes
a breach of the contract of employment. The servant must
show that damage has ensued to himself by reason of the
master's breach of contract, and that such breach of contract
was the direct result of the defendant's interference. There
is authority for holding that an action will also lie for
maliciously inducing a person to abstain from entering into a
contract to employ the plaintiff, if loss thereby ensues to
him ; but the law on this point is far from clear. 4
It is not
actionable for A. merely to induce B. not to enter into a
contract with C. But in cases outside the Trade Disputes
1 Garret v. Taylor (1621), Cro. Jac. 667 ; and see Springhead Spinning Co. v.
Riley (1868), L. E. 6 Eq. 551.
2 Per Lord Lindley in Quinn v. Leathern, [1901] A. C. at p. 540.
3 Lumley v. Gye (1853), 2 E. & B. 216 ; Evans v. Walton (1867), L. R. 2
0. P. 615 ; Boiuen v. Hall (1881), 6 Q. B. D. 333 ; Fred. Wilkins %
Bros., Ltd. ».
Weaver, [1915] 2 CI). 322. As to the measure of damages in an action for enticing
away the servant of another, see Gunter v. Astor (1819), i Moore, 12.
* Temperton v. Russell and others, [1893] 1 Q. B. 715 ; but see Allen v. Flood,
[1898] A. CM.