## Facts

- A statutory dock labour scheme placed defined “dock work” under the control of the National Dock Labour Board (NDLB), but exempted a “waterside manufacturer” that both (1) had wharfing facilities and (2) carried on a manufacturing process connected with cargo handled at the wharf.
- Pinn & Wheeler Ltd (Pinn) operated wharf premises abutting the water and performed loading and unloading of timber cargo.
- K & B Forest Products Ltd (K&B) operated a manufacturing site about 500 yards from the wharf; timber unloaded at the wharf was transported to K&B for processing.
- Sabah Timber Co Ltd (Sabah) owned Pinn and K&B as wholly owned subsidiaries and controlled the group’s timber operations.
- Pinn, K&B, and Sabah jointly sought a tribunal declaration that they should be treated as a single entity for purposes of the docks legislation and, taken together, qualified as a “waterside manufacturer” exempt from NDLB jurisdiction.
- The industrial tribunal accepted the “single unit” approach, treating Pinn and K&B together and concluding the manufacturing requirement could be satisfied even if manufacturing occurred some distance from the wharf.

## Issues

1. Whether the tribunal was entitled to treat separate companies within a corporate group as a single undertaking for purposes of the statutory “waterside manufacturer” exemption.
2. Whether the exemption could be satisfied by combining a wharf operator’s activities with manufacturing carried on by a different group company at a nearby, non-wharf site.
3. Whether, absent aggregation, Pinn’s loading and unloading remained within NDLB jurisdiction under the dock labour scheme.

## Decision

- The High Court allowed the NDLB’s appeal from the industrial tribunal.
- The court rejected the tribunal’s approach of treating the group as a single entity for the exemption.
- The court held the tribunal had improperly disregarded separate corporate personality in order to classify the group as a “waterside manufacturer.”
- The result was that Pinn could not avoid NDLB jurisdiction over its dock work by relying on manufacturing undertaken by a separate group company.

## Legal Principles

- Separate corporate personality must be respected in applying statutory classifications unless a recognized legal basis exists to disregard it (e.g., sham or fraud, or clear statutory direction).
- Commercial integration and common ownership within a group do not, without more, justify treating multiple companies as a single statutory “person” or undertaking.
- Statutory exemptions from regulatory regimes are construed by reference to the legal person meeting the exemption’s elements; separate companies’ assets and operations cannot be combined to satisfy those elements.

## Conclusion

The High Court set aside the tribunal’s group-based approach and held that the “waterside manufacturer” exemption could not be created by aggregating separate companies’ wharf and manufacturing activities; Pinn’s dock work therefore remained subject to NDLB control under the dock labour scheme.


Nat’l Dock Labour Bd. v. Pinn & Wheeler, Ltd., [1989] BCLC 647 (Q.B. 1988)