Lee v Showmen's Guild of Great Britain [1952] 2 QB 329 is a UK labour law case, concerning the construction of terms in a contract of employment.
Frank Lee was expelled from the Showmen's Guild after refusing to respect the outcome of a dispute over place at a fairground.
He had been given a spot, for his roundabout show called Noah's Ark, by a local corporation, but the guild decided it should be reallocated to another member, Shaw, who had the site before the war.
Ormerod J granted an injunction against the expulsion, holding that there was no breach of the relevant rule, because no conduct had amounted to unfair competition.
The Court of Appeal held that Frank Lee should not have been expelled, because the committee had acted outside the rules of the union.
The jurisdiction of a domestic tribunal, such as the committee of the Showmen's Guild, must be founded on a contract, express or implied.
Outside the regular courts of this country, no set of men can sit in judgment on their fellows except so far as Parliament authorizes it or the parties agree to it.
The jurisdiction of the committee of the Showmen's Guild is contained in a written set of rules to which all the members subscribe.
that the courts only intervened in these cases to protect rights of property: see Rigby v Connol;[1] and other judges have often said the same thing: see, for instance, Cookson v Harewood.
denied that there was any such limitation on the power of the courts: see Osborne v Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants;[3] and it has now become clear that he was right: see the comporters' case, Abbott v Sullivan.
[4] That case shows that the power of this court to intervene is founded on its jurisdiction to protect rights of contract.
If a member is expelled by a committee in breach of contract, this court will grant a declaration that their action is ultra vires.
Another limitation arises out of the well-known principle that parties cannot by contract oust the ordinary courts from their jurisdiction: see Scott v Avery,[11] per Alderson B.
If parties should seek, by agreement, to take the law out of the hands of the courts and put it into the hands of a private tribunal, without any recourse at all to the courts in case of error of law, then the agreement is to that extent contrary to public policy and void: see Czarnikow & Co. Ld.
[14] The question in this case is: to what extent will the courts examine the decisions of domestic tribunals on points of law?
They will see that the committee observe the procedure laid down by the rules; but they will not otherwise interfere: see Labouchere v Earl of Wharncliffe[15] and Dawkins v Antrobus.
The man is supposed to have contracted to give them these great powers; but in practice he has no choice in the matter.
When that happens, the question whether the committee has acted within its jurisdiction depends, in my opinion, on whether the facts adduced before them were reasonably capable of being held to be a breach of the rules.
These are not directly in point, because a statute can, expressly or by implication, exclude the jurisdiction of the courts, whereas parties cannot do so.
The cases show that, although Parliament has given a tribunal power to deprive a man of his livelihood for a particular cause, nevertheless the courts will intervene if there is a real substantial miscarriage of justice with regard to him; and they will hold that there is a miscarriage of justice if the facts adduced before the tribunal are not reasonably capable of supporting the charge made against him.
[19] It has sometimes been said in these cases that absence of evidence is not itself a ground for the intervention of the court, but only goes to show bad faith in the tribunal: see Leeson v General Council of Medical Education and Registration[20] and Maclean v The Workers' Union;[21] but I do not think that those statements can stand in the light of Osgood v Nelson,[22] which was not cited to the court in either case.
My conclusion, therefore, is that the court has power in this case to intervene in the decision of the committee of the Showmen's Guild if no facts were adduced before them which could reasonably be considered to be "unfair competition" within rule 15 (c), which says that "no member of the guild shall indulge in unfair competition with regard to the renting, taking, or letting of ground or position."
Inasmuch as the facts are not reasonably capable of being "unfair competition" it follows that the committee had no jurisdiction to find him guilty of it.
There was another charge suggested, though not clearly made, against the plaintiff - namely, that he failed to observe the previous ruling of the committee which had awarded the site to Shaw.
The only real question before us is whether, on the admitted facts, the plaintiff could properly be found guilty of "unfair competition" within rule 15 (c).