We have by now come to realise that a contract of service imposes upon the parties a duty of mutual respect.Mr Wilson, a "man of considerable competence" was the head gardener of an 80-acre (320,000 m2) estate at Tolethorpe Hall, Little Casterton, Stamford.

For the purpose of the present case, the test is whether the plaintiff's conduct was insulting and insubordinate to such a degree as to be incompatible with the continuance of the relation of master and servant: per Hill J in Edwards v Levy (1860) 2 F&F 94, 95.

Many of the decisions which are customarily cited in these cases date from the last century and may be wholly out of accord with current social conditions.

What happened on Sunday June 11, emerges from the judge's clear and helpful judgment, in which he reviews all the facts and sets out his findings.

The story began on the preceding Friday afternoon when the plaintiff had been trimming a new yew hedge with an electric cutter.

It was a damp afternoon, but the plaintiff carried on, taking shelter when the rain became heavy and then resuming his work when conditions improved.

Do you expect me to get fucking wet?” The judge, who found that Mrs. Racher and the children did not hear those words, said: “The plaintiff had a clear conscience, and he did reply somewhat robustly when he expressed the state of the weather.

I think he felt under a certain amount of grievance at that remark.” According to the judge, “The defendant then moved to what he thought was stronger ground,” thereby obviously referring to his determination to get rid of the plaintiff.

He rightly stresses the domestic nature of this particular contract of service, and says that, the plaintiff being engaged in a family setting, obscene language of the kind admittedly used by him could not possibly be tolerated.

The sole question that accordingly arises is whether the language most regrettably employed by the plaintiff constituted such conduct as made the continuance of the contract of service impossible.

That last expression, coupled with the letter sent the next morning, seem to show that he was ready to continue in the employ.” In that case, decided 114 years ago, the jury found for the plaintiff.

The culminating incident was when the employer asked the plaintiff what arrangements he had made in relation to a greenhouse in his absence during the weekend.

That the court were there having regard not simply to the last incident of June 10, in isolation, but to the whole history, appears also from the other judgments, Russell L.J., for example, saying, at p. 518: “I entirely agree that, against the background of what the plaintiff's counsel must admit the deputy county court judge found or assumed to be quite a number of disobediences and a certain amount of insolence, it must be taken as conduct repudiatory of the contract justifying summary dismissal.” The present case, too, has to be looked at against the whole background.

On the judge's findings, here was a competent, diligent and efficient gardener who, apart from one complaint of leaving a ladder against a yew tree, had done nothing which could be regarded as blame-worthy by any reasonable employer.

The plaintiff tried to avert the situation by walking away, but he was summoned back and the defendant continued his gadfly activity of goading him into intemperate language.

There are no grounds for thinking that if the defendant had given him a warning that such language would not be tolerated, and further, if he had manifested recognition that he himself had acted provocatively, the damage done might well have been repaired and some degree of harmony restored.

On the contrary, it requires very special circumstances to entitle a servant who expresses his feelings in such a grossly improper way to succeed in an action for wrongful dismissal.

The plaintiff, probably lacking the educational advantages of the defendant, and finding himself in a frustrating situation despite his efforts to escape from it, fell into the error of explosively using this language.

I would therefore be for dismissing the appeal.Cairns LJ I agree that this appeal should be dismissed for the reasons which Edmund Davies LJ has given, and I only add, out of respect for the argument addressed to the court by Mr. Connell on behalf of the defendant, a few words about the other authority which he cited, namely, Laws v London Chronicle (Indicator Newspapers) Ltd [1959] 1 WLR 698 .

Lord Evershed MR in the course of a judgment with which the other members of the court, Jenkins and Willmer LJJ, agreed, said, at p. 701: “… one act of disobedience or misconduct can justify dismissal only if it is of a nature which goes to show (in effect) that the servant is repudiating the contract, or one of its essential conditions; and for that reason, therefore, I think that you find in the passages I have read that the disobedience must at least have the quality that it is ‘wilful’: it does (in other words) connote a deliberate flouting of the essential contractual conditions.” There is certainly nothing more essential to the contractual relation between master and servant than the duty of obedience.

In my view, this was not a case where it can be said with any justice to the plaintiff that the way in which he behaved, regrettable though it was, was such as to show “deliberate flouting of the essential contractual conditions,” having regard to the unjust accusation which had been made against him.