Day 262 - 13 Jun 96 - Page 61


     
     1        client and must be produced.
     2
     3        Lord Loreburn said, on page 5, halfway down the page, just
     4        before halfway:
     5
     6             "He was a member of a trade union on terms which
     7             entitled him to a variety of benefits, and among
     8             others to the right of receiving legal
     9             assistance in case of unjust dismissal.  In such
    10             cases he was bound by the rules to give full
    11             particulars to the authorities of the trade
    12             union, and the sanction of the executive
    13             committee or of the general secretary was needed
    14             before a solicitor was engaged.  In the present
    15             instance certain letters passed between
    16             Godfrey Jones and the officials of the union,
    17             containing information about the dispute.  They
    18             were written before any action was brought in
    19             order to satisfy the union authorities that they
    20             ought to sanction the employment of a solicitor
    21             and to furnish information and to furnish
    22             information by which the solicitor should be
    23             enabled to conduct the action which the workmen
    24             contemplated and desired."
    25
    26        Over the page, about six lines down:
    27
    28             "Both client and solicitor may act through an
    29             agent, and therefore communications to or
    30             through the agent are within the privilege.  But
    31             if communications are made to him as a person
    32             who has himself to consider and act upon them,
    33             then the privilege is gone; and this is because
    34             the principle which protects communications only
    35             between solicitor and client no longer applies.
    36             Here documents are in existence relating to the
    37             matter in dispute which were communicated to
    38             someone who was not a solicitor, nor the mere
    39             alter ego of the solicitor.
    40
    41                  "Disclosure is constantly required of
    42             letters between partners or between a firm and
    43             its agents.  It is rare in litigation when
    44             communications are confined to letters passing
    45             between solicitor and client.  And every large
    46             concern, whether a railway company or a trade
    47             union or whatever it be, that must needs conduct
    48             its business by correspondence is amenable to
    49             the same rule - a rule in itself wholesome, for
    50             it favours the placing before a Court of Justice 
    51             of all material circumstances that may lead to a 
    52             just decision." 
    53
    54        On the basis of that authority, which was applied in
    55        Alfred Compton Amusement Machines Ltd. V. Commissioners of
    56        Customs and Excise, I ask your Lordship to consider what
    57        was the nature of the relationship in this case.
    58
    59        You have, first of all, the agents.  You have the firm of
    60        inquiry agents who either employed them or engaged them --

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