Employment—Summary judgment

It was settled law that although a case might turn out at trial not to be really complicated, it did not follow that it should be decided without fuller investigation into the facts at trial than is possible on an application for summary judgment. Accordingly, the court should hesitate about making a final decision without a trial. However, care should be exercised when the case concerned the construction of a written contract. The factual matrix was the key to understanding what the parties had intended by the words they used. If there was no conflict of evidence on a relevant point, it was only when there were reasonable grounds for supposing that a fuller investigation of the facts might make a difference, that the court should decline to construe the contract on summary judgment.