How could employers sue unions for losses suffered due to industrial action?

Since unions had been exempted from being a criminal conspiracy back in 1892, employers had to look for other ways to take legal action. The civil law, which deals with rights and responsibilities between people and organizations, provided an answer. In civil law, it is possible to sue someone else in tort. A tort is an injury or a wrong for which it is possible to pursue a claim for compensation or damages. For example, the tort of negligence allows someone to sue someone else for the reasonably foreseeable consequences of actions if he or she is negligent and causes injury.

In response to actions brought by employers against unions, the court developed a subset of torts, called economic torts, that applied in business situations where the losses were purely economic and not physical. This body of law began to develop in Britain and was imported to Canada over the course of the 1900s. Examples of economic torts are civil conspiracy, inducing breach of contract, intimidation, trespass, nuisance, and breach of a labour relations law.

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