Andaloro v Wyong Co-operative Dairy Society Ltd [1966] HCA 61

High Court of Australia Barwick C.J. McTiernan, Taylor, Menzies and Owen JJ. Andaloro v Wyong Co-operative Dairy Society Ltd [1966] HCA 61

ORDER Appeal dismissed with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

Oct. 14 Barwick C.J.

The appellants are milk producers in the Erina milk producing district of the State of New South Wales. They have at all material times been the holders of a certificate of registration as dairymen, issued pursuant to s. 25 of the Milk Act, 1931-1965 (the Act), authorizing them

to produce raw milk Grade B to be supplied for consumption or use within a milk distributing district by means of delivering the same to the Milk Board at the factory of The Wyong Co-operative Dairy Society Limited (the Co-operative) at Old Maitland Road, Wyong.

It appears that the Co-operative under industrial pressure from the Transport Workers' Union endeavoured to compel producers of milk in the milk producing district to employ a carrier nominated by an unofficial group of such producers to transport the milk from their dairy premises to the factory. The appellants, not desiring to employ this carrier, partly because of the charges made by him and partly for their own convenience, insisted on carrying the milk produced by them to the factory in their own vehicle. This the Co-operative decided not to allow. By its servants, who included the manager of the factory, the respondent Allan Frame, it sought physically to prevent the appellants completing the delivery there. Further, the Co-operative clearly notified the appellants that it would not allow any delivery of milk to be made by the appellants at the factory unless the milk was transported by the nominated carrier or unless the appellants, having carried the milk in their own vehicle, paid such carrier the cartage he would have charged the appellants had he, the carrier, carried the milk. The Board's attitude to these actions on the part of its agent, the Co-operative, was, to put the construction most favourable to the Board upon it, equivocal.