Opinion ID: 2225574
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 20

Heading: Prohibited Conduct Under the Injunctions

Text: Both the 1989 preliminary injunction and the 1990 permanent injunction prohibited R.K. from disclosing or using a surge free control valve created by grinding or milling the valve spool so as to create an unbalanced control spool which converts the tank side of a hydraulic cylinder to a fluid damper which dissipates pressure surges. In determining whether a party is in contempt of an order, a court may not expand an earlier order's prohibitory or mandatory language beyond a reasonable interpretation considering the purposes for which the order was entered. [97] We recognize that contract principles generally apply to the enforcement of consent decrees. And these principles prohibit a court from considering extrinsic evidence of the decree's meaning absent some ambiguity. [98] But here, both parties disputed the meaning of key technical terms in the injunction: unbalanced control spool and fluid damper. Because of their different definitions of these terms, they argued that the injunction prohibited different conduct. The Court of Appeals, in a 2004 unpublished opinion involving these parties, determined that both of these terms were ambiguous as a matter of law. It stated that the terms could be fairly interpreted in more than one way. [99] We agree, as we will discuss further in the analysis section. Because of this ambiguity, the district court on remand from Smeal I [100] judicially noticed the testimony of SFAC's hydraulic expert at the preliminary injunction hearing, the expert's 2002 deposition, and the transcript of the preliminary injunction hearing. We similarly conclude that reviewing the previous injunction proceedings is crucial to understanding the injunction's purpose.