[1] The case was almost immediately reversed by the Trade Disputes Act 1965 insofar as it decided on economic torts, although the law on punitive damages remains authoritative.

Citing a case from the 18th century entitled Tarelton v M'Gawley (1793) Peake 270 where a ship fired a cannonball across the bow of another, Lord Reid said the union was guilty of the tort of intimidation.

It was unlawful intimidation "to use a threat to break their contracts with their employer as a weapon to make him do something which he was legally entitled to do but which they knew would cause loss to the plaintiff".

[2] A corollary to the main issue in the case, but of greater lasting importance, was Lord Devlin's pronouncements on when punitive damages are applied.

The only three situations in which damages are allowed to be punitive, i.e. with the purpose of punishing the wrongdoer rather than aiming simply to compensate the claimant, are in cases of (1) oppressive, arbitrary or unconstitutional actions by the servants of government; (2) where the defendant's conduct was "calculated" to make a profit for himself; (3) where a statute expressly authorises the same.

Maule J. in Williams v. Curry, at page 848, suggests the same thing; and so does Martin B. in an arbiter dictum in Crouch v. Great Northern Railway Company, [1856] 11 Ex.

Where a Defendant with a cynical disregard for a Plaintiff's rights has calculated that the money to be made out of his wrong-doing will probably exceed the damages at risk, it is necessary for the law to show that it cannot be broken with impunity.

The anomaly inherent in exemplary damages would become an absurdity if a Plaintiff totally unaffected by some oppressive conduct which the jury wished to punish obtained a windfall in consequence.

It may even be that the House may find it necessary to follow the precedent it set for itself in Benham v. Gambling, and place some arbitrary limit on awards of damages that are made by way of punishment.

If it cannot, the court must consider whether or not the punishment is in all the circumstances excessive.The case's result on restricting freedom of association was met with immediate outrage for creating, or reviving, economic torts as a weapon to undermine the right to strike, and was reversed by Parliament in the Trade Disputes Act 1965.