Opinion ID: 1435053
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the propriety of granting injunctive relief.

Text: The trial court found that the occupation of the chancellor's office threatened to interfere with the successful administrative functioning of the East-West Center. The injuries flowing from such interference, resulting as they do in the threatened loss of class time by both students and faculty, are not susceptible to pecuniary valuation. Thus, the plaintiffs were faced with the threat of irreparable injury and, under traditional equitable principles, the trial court properly sought to enjoin those acts which threatened to cause such injury. See 4 Pomeroy, Equity Jurisprudence, § 1347 (5th ed. 1941). In addition, we do not agree with the defendants' contentions that the suitability of injunctive relief in this case is affected by the possible criminal nature of the defendants' conduct. The courts and commentators have long recognized that although equity will not enjoin an act merely because it is criminal, an injunction will issue where an individual property right is also threatened or there are other appropriate circumstances. [1] In such circumstances equity acts not to enforce the criminal law but to protect the rights of the individual from irreparable injury. As the New York Court of Appeals explained in People ex rel. Bennett v. Laman, 277 N.Y. 368, 376, 14 N.E.2d 439, 442 (1938): [T]he criminal nature of an act will not deprive equity of the jurisdiction that would otherwise attach.   . Whether or not the act sought to be enjoined is a crime, is immaterial. Equity does not seek to enjoin it simply because it is a crime; it seeks to protect some proper interest. If the interest sought to be protected is one of which equity will take cognizance, it will not refuse to take jurisdiction on the ground that the act which invades that interest is punishable by the penal statutes of the State. Thus, under the traditional principles of equity injunctive relief was properly granted. We do not choose, however, to rest our decision on this ground alone. In challenging the use of an injunction in this case, the defendants have raised questions of policy which merit discussion.
The defendants contend that where the demonstrators' conduct is of a criminal character the use of equity decrees to control it will be futile and ineffective. This is because criminal acts are already prohibited by law and the force of an injunction adds nothing to the prohibition of the statute. If the fear of punishment by the criminal courts will not restrain a defendant's acts, it is argued, neither will fear of punishment by an equity court for contempt. We do not believe, however, that this argument exhausts all of the possibilities. For while it is doubtlessly true that injunctive relief will prove of no avail in restraining those who clearly set out to break the law without any claim of right, it may be of genuine value in resolving conflicts where there is doubt between the parties as to their respective rights. The case at hand provides a good illustration. In the instant case the defendants initially asserted that their conduct was a legitimate exercise of their right peaceably to assemble and petition for a redress of grievances, and therefore was protected under the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution and article I, section 3 of the Hawaii Constitution. The plaintiffs, on the other hand, argued that the defendants were mere trespassers. In this situation the use of the injunctive process was not a futile exercise; it enabled the parties to enjoy the benefits of a form of anticipatory litigation, gaining for them an immediate entry to the judicial process. For the defendants, the value of a judicial proceeding, as against immediate arrest by the police, is that it provides the most effective means of informing those who wish to stay within the bounds of legally protected expression exactly where that elusive line lies. In addition it provides an immediate opportunity for the parties to resolve their differences peacefully, in accordance with a judicial determination of the question of right and wrong. The wisdom of this course is illustrated in this case by the obedience which followed upon the issuance of the trial court's decision and order. We are not prepared to rule as a matter of law that future defendants, similarly situated, will be less responsive to the workings of the judicial process. [3]