Court Opinion

ID: 9853077
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:42:01.70232+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:40.585391
License: Public Domain

*194Collins,
concurring in part, dissenting in part:
I concur with the majority that the trial court by granting the preliminary injunction decided only that die covenant was valid and reserved the question of reasonableness to the trial on the merits. However, I do not agree that a review of the record of the hearing pertaining to the granting of the injunction now permits us to fix, as a matter of law, the reasonableness of the restraint either as to time or space. This appeal is from the propriety of the granting of the injunction, not a determination of the reasonableness of the covenant on the merits of the entire controversy. Blinn v. Hutterische Soc. of Wolf Creek, 194 P. 140 (Mont. 1920).
We should decide, in my opinion, only that covenants in restraint of trade are not ipso facto void in Nevada under our existing general principles of law. Therefore, the granting of the preliminary injunction pending a determination on the merits was within the lower court’s discretion. Sutton v. Sutton, 110 S.E. 777 (N.C. 1922). NRS 613.200 does not apply to this situation.
The reasonableness of the restraint as to time requires a further factual consideration in this case which is not within our province to make initially. Solen v. V. & T. R.R. Co., 13 Nev. 106, 135 (1878). I feel the court is departing from its proper role in fixing at this state of the proceedings the operative limits of time and space of the covenant in the contract.
The court is not just modifying the preliminary injunction pending trial on the merits, for some reasonable, compelling purpose (Phenix v. Frampton, 29 Nev. 306, 319 (1907), but is making a final adjudication of the matter, on both fact and law.