Opinion ID: 198547
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Preliminary Injunction Order

Text: 19 Safety Products next contends that the Settlement Agreement did not prevent it from disseminating the July 1996 preliminary injunction over the Internet, but instead mandated only that it join with Danjaq in persuading the district court to vacate the July 1996 order, and refrain from publishing the order in any official reporter or in any other medium, including but not limited to the LEXIS and Westlaw electronic databases. See Agreement ¶ 4(c) (emphasis added). Since it cooperated in getting the district court to vacate the order and halt its interim publication, Safety Products argues that Ronald Pasqualino's dissemination of the vacated order on the Internet would not have breached the literal terms of the Settlement Agreement. 20 Safety Products' interpretation of the Settlement Agreement strikes us as high octane sophistry. First, although ¶ 4(c) literally addresses only the district court's publication of the vacated order, as a whole ¶ 4(c) evinces a reasonable expectation on the part of Danjaq that Safety Products was to take good faith measures to ensure that the order was not published in any of the enumerated media. Second, in ¶ 16, Safety Products agreed that the Terms of this Agreement (including, but not limited to, the matters enumerated in paragraph 4 above), shall remain confidential, and shall not be disclosed to any person or entity. . . . In the event any person should inquire of any of the parties concerning the action or products' claims, the party of whom the inquiry is made may say that the matter has been fully and finally resolved, but shall not say any more. Thus, the confidentiality clause expressly precluded not only disclosure of the terms in ¶ 4, but any matters enumerated in ¶ 4, thereby plainly encompassing the text of the vacated order. Contracts include an implied covenant that all parties shall perform their contractual obligations in good faith. See James L. Miniter Ins. Agency, Inc. v. Ohio Indemnity Co., 112 F.3d 1240, 1249 (1st Cir. 1997). Safety Products reasonably cannot claim that its only obligation was to persuade the district court not to publish the vacated order on the Internet, but that Safety Products itself remained free to do so. 21