McClelland v Northern Ireland General Health Services

McClelland v Northern Ireland General Health Services
Court	House of Lords
Citation(s)	[1957] 1 WLR 594, [1957] 2 All ER 129
Case opinions
Lord Oaksey, Lord Goddard and Lord Evershed
Keywords
Wrongful dismissal, construction

McClelland v Northern Ireland General Health Services [1957] 2 All ER 129 is a UK labour law case concerning wrongful dismissal, and construction of contracts.

Facts

Mrs McClelland claimed that her dismissal from being a permanent senior clerk for 5 years from the NHS on the basis of a rule that ‘Female officer will on marriage be required to tender their resignations to the board’, created after her job started, was wrongful. Condition 12 of her contract mentioned gross misconduct and inefficiency as grounds for dismissal. She was given six months notice. The Health Services argued that her contract was not wrongful because it could be terminated on reasonable notice.

Judgment

The majority of the House of Lords, reversing the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal, held that the dismissal was wrongful, because the express powers in condition 12 were exhaustive and excluded any implied power to dismiss on giving reasonable notice.

Lord Evershed said the following.

[T]he effect of the September conditions which the board put forward and made the contractual basis of the appellant's service was that, so long as she did not render herself liable to dismissal on one or other of the grounds expressly stated in her contract and was willing and able to serve the board, the appellant was entitled to continue in her employment for life.

Lord Tucker and Lord Keith dissenting, held that condition 12 was not explicit enough to be exhaustive.

See also

• UK labour law
• Unfair dismissal