P contracted with D to have her sing in his theatre for 3 months.
D subsequently agreed to sing in another theatre.
P sued D in a court of equity seeking an injunction to keep D from singing in other theatres.
Procedural History:
Lower court found for P, injunction granted.
Chancery court affirmed, found for P, injunction granted.
Issues:
Can an injunction be granted to enforce a negative covenant of a contract?
Holding/Rule:
An injunction can be granted to enforce a negative covenant of a contract.
Reasoning:
This contract contains a positive covenant (the requirement that the singer sing for the theatre) and a negative covenant (the implied requirement that she wouldn't sing in a different theatre).
Courts should not enforce necessarily enforce positive covenants like these since we don't want to force employees to work for employers they don't want to work for.
However, courts can enforce negative covenants if the commodity in question in the contract is sufficiently rare or has a specific talent.
These types of injunctions should be granted in situations where the remedy at law in inadequate; forcing her to pay for breach would not adequately compensate the P for losing this major talent and having her defect to a different theatre (and it would probably be pretty hard to estimate the damages).
Dissent:
None.
Notes:
Specific performance?
The court will not force her to work with the opera company because of the public policy that the courts will not force persons to perform a personal service for someone else.
The remedy, then, is a negative injunction to try to push her back to her original employer.
