Royal Mail Group Ltd v Communication Workers Union

Summary judgment requires both limbs of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 test to be satisfied: the defendant must have no real prospect of successfully defending the claim or issue, and there must be no other compelling reason for a trial.

The court must not conduct a mini-trial. Where liability depends on disputed evidence, witness credibility or inferences arising from an industrial dispute, an apparently improbable defence may nevertheless have a real prospect of success. A trial may also be required where the same factual evidence will be necessary for unresolved issues, so that summary determination would not save meaningful time or reduce the evidence required.

The claimant, Royal Mail Group Ltd, sought summary judgment on liability for allegedly inducing employees to breach their employment contracts by taking part in unballoted industrial action at its Bootle Delivery Office. The defendant trade union denied that its officials induced the walk-out and relied on disputed evidence concerning the employer’s instructions, the circumstances of the employees’ departure and subsequent WhatsApp messages and picketing.

The application concerned only the inducement claim relating to the Bootle action. Other contractual and factual issues remained for trial. The central question was whether the defence had no real prospect of success and whether there was any other compelling reason for the issue to proceed to trial.

1. The application for summary judgment was refused. The court was required to consider both whether the defendant had no real prospect of successfully defending the inducement claim and whether there was no other compelling reason for the issue to be disposed of at trial.

2. The alleged inducement depended on disputed questions of fact. The claimant invited the court to infer inducement from WhatsApp messages and surrounding circumstances, but there was no clear evidence of what was said or done at the critical time. The defendant’s representative had provided a witness statement denying responsibility, and the employer had not produced evidence from the relevant manager. Those matters meant that the court could not properly resolve the issue summarily.

3. The messages gave substantial support to the allegation that union officials encouraged the continuation of the stoppage. The defendant’s account on that issue was described as improbable. That did not mean that it had no real prospect of success. The summary judgment jurisdiction is concerned with absence of reality, not with deciding which evidence is more probable.

4. The court must avoid conducting a mini-trial. The guidance in Swain v Hillman [2001] 1 All ER 91 and Three Rivers DC v Bank of England (No. 3) [2003] 2 AC 1 required particular caution where factual inferences depended on seeing and hearing witnesses. This industrial dispute was materially different from a case suitable for summary determination on the interpretation of contractual terms, such as ED&F Man Liquid Products Ltd v Patel [2003] EWCA Civ 472.

5. There was also a compelling reason for a trial. The trial judge would need to hear the evidence about the background of the dispute and determine causation and loss on the remaining claims. Summary judgment would therefore be unlikely to save time or reduce the witnesses required.

The application was accordingly refused.