Court Opinion

ID: 9636238
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:20:52.61616+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:43.104286
License: Public Domain

*430COTTERAL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The averments of the plaintiff’s-bill are that the defendant has copied its plan of conducting business and plagiarized its form of rental agreement with its agents and its methods of advertising its business; that defendant and its agents procured plaintiff’s agents, after being educated by plaintiff in the art of using aluxpinum cook ware and selling it, to quit its employment and take employment with defendant; that the acts of said agents were violative of their contracts with plaintiff and were deliberately instituted to destroy plaintiff’s business and its established good" will and' to appropriate unfairly its profits and its methods of conducting business. Averments, are added, showing the want of an adequate remedy at law.
In my opinion, the bill states, a case for relief., . It is founded on the. principle that the good .will of an established* business will, be protected by injunction, to the- extent of preventing the agents of the owner from breaking their contracts and taking competitive employment. That principle is settled by the authorities. Wark v. Ervin Press Corporation (C. C. A.) 48 F.(2d) 152. It is not in conflict with the principle that mere employment of an agent -by another may not be restricted by'contract. Super Maid Cook-Ware Corporation v. Hamil (C. C. A.) 50 F.(2d) 830.
Entertaining this view, I think the District Court was right in overruling the motion to dismiss the bill and referring the ease to a master.