Court Opinion

ID: 5440453
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-01-08 18:02:06.324011+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:31:59.377595
License: Public Domain

Myrick, J.:
This is an appeal from an order refusing to grant an injunction. The facts as presented by the pleadings and affidavits are substantially as follows:
The plaintiffs were warehousemen, and as such occupied certain premises as tenants of the defendant Hopkins. The defendant Andrew was their clerk or agent in and about the business, and had access to their books and papers, and knowledge of the business and their customers. The lease under *123which plaintiffs held the premises, at a monthly rental of four hundred dollars, was about to expire, viz., on the 1st of November, 1879. During some month or two prior to the expiration of the lease, plaintiffs were negotiating with Hopkins for a renewal of the lease at a reduced rental, but their minds had not met as to whether there would be a renewal. During the same time the defendant Andrew was, without the knowledge of plaintiffs, negotiating with Hopkins for a lease of the premises to himself and the defendant Eoss. During such negotiations, defendant Andrew, without authority from plaintiffs, told Hopkins that plaintiffs would probably give up the warehouse, and if so he would take it at four hundred and fifty dollars per month. Hopkins, without receiving definite information from plaintiffs that they intended to surrender the premises, but believing that such would be the case, gave to the defendants Andrew and Eoss a lease of the premises for four years from November 1st, 1879, at a monthly rental of four hundred and fifty dollars. Andrew’s object in obtaining the lease was to enter into the business of warehousing Avith Eoss on their own account; and Andrew solicited from some of the customers of plaintiffs at the warehouse their storage business, stating that “ he had become the lessee of the warehouse because Gower & Gilman did not want it any longer.” During all this time Andrew was in the employ of plaintiffs. As soon, however, as they learned that he had taken the lease he was dismissed.
We think the injunction should have been granted. The granting or refusing to grant an injunction is very much Avithin the discretion of the Court to which the application is made; and an appellate Court will not interfere unless a right clearly appears to exist. We think, however, that the facts before us clearly show a case where the plaintiffs, if they shall finally substantiate those facts, will be entitled to relief. We understand it to be the duty of the employee to devote his entire acts, so far as his acts may affect the business of his employer, to the interests and service of the employer; that he can engage in no business detrimental to the business of the employer; and that he should in no case be permitted to do for his own benefit that which would have the effect of destroying the business to sustain and carry on which his serv*124ices have been secured. An agent should not, any more than a trustee, adopt a course that will operate as an inducement to postpone the principal’s interest to his own. An agent or sub-agent who uses the information he has obtained in the course of his agency as a means of buying for himself, will be compelled to convey to the principal. (Elliott v. Merryman, 1 Lead. Cas. Eq. 91.)
It may be said that Andrew was not the agent of plaintiffs so far as concerns the obtaining of a renewal of the lease; that he was not charged with the duty of obtaining a renewal; it must, however, be said that he was, by virtue of his employment, charged with the duty of furthering their interests, and with the duty of not using the information obtained by him as their employee to their detriment. It seems to us that if Andrew desired to engage in the same business as his employers, on his own account, a very plain and very proper course was open to him, viz., to state to them all the facts, and ask them to determine whether they desired a renewal. By pursuing the course which he did, he gave to Hopkins an inducement not only not to give plaintiffs a renewal at a decreased rental, but also an inducement not to renew at the then rental; and he compelled plaintiffs to have an unknown competitor who based his action upon knowledge acquired by him while in their employ. We do not think that this is equity or good conscience.
The order refusing the injunction is reversed.
Boss, J., McKee, J., and Morrison, C. J., concurred.
Sharpstein, J., and McKinstry, J., dissented.