Court Opinion

ID: 9865453
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 17:52:45.385669+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:46:27.046356
License: Public Domain

Justice Davis,
in his concurring opinion in the same case, states:
‘A court of equity will not interevene to enforce specific performance negatively by enjoining breach of a restrictive labor covenant, where it has been made to appear that the contract is harsh and oppressive in favor of the employer *664against the employee, or is otherwise lacking in fairness or mutuality of obligation between the parties to it.”
We submit that the principles as set out above are not applicable to the case at bar for several reasons. First, the principles above stated were applied to an entirely different type of case. In those cases the contract was between two parties of unequal contracting power; i. e., the employer was presumed to be able to dictate his own terms, more or less. The above cases were founded on contracts that were held to contain some element of unfairness and that worked an undue hardship on one party. In the case at bar, the contract was a fair one and was not unduly harsh on the appellant. The parties to the sub-lease were apparently not in such a situation that either could dictate terms to the other. Thus we have here a different situation from the above cases. We are of the opinion that the appellant could have obtained a temporary injunction against the appellee, had it attempted to exercise its option and break the lease without giving fifteen days’ notice or the payment of $100.00 consideration, if he could show that he, too, would suffer any irreparable injury.
Our court seems to agree with the authorities that “An injunction against the breach of a contract is a negative decree of specific performance of the agreement, and the general rule is that the power and the duty of equity to grant the former is measured by the same rules and practice as its power and duty to grant the latter relief.” See Seaboard Oil Co. v. Donovan, 99 Fla. 1296, 128 So. 821.
There seems to be little or no precedent in this State to follow in deciding the exact question before us. • If we look to other jurisdictions we find a great conflict among the cases found there, so we are of the opinion that we must decide this case strictly upon principle. We are inclined to agree wdth the reasoning of Pomeroy and some of the cases *665cited in Corpus Juris, supra. From them we glean the following :
“The fact that the contract (sub-lease) is terminable at the option of one only of the parties does not of itself render the contract objectionable for lack of mutuality of remedy, or prevent the party in whose favor the option exists from enjoining a breach of the contract where a proper case is otherwise made out for equitable relief by injunction. The legal principle that contracts must be mutual does not mean that in every case each party must have the same remedy for a breach as the other. Mere difference in the right stipulated for does not destroy mutuality of remedy * * * so long as the bounds of reasonableness and fairness are not transgressed.” (32 C. J. Injunctions 297.) “The plaintiff in the case in question gives a sufficient practical demonstration of his desire to carry out the contract and not abandon it by going to the expense of bringing the suit. But the fallacy of these decisions goes deeper than this; relief is refused, not because the court is unable to secure such performance as is due from the plaintiff while he elects to keep the contract alive, but because the court is unable to compel the plaintiff to do something that he has never contracted to do, viz., to keep the contract alive for a definite predetermined period. These' holdings assume that the doctrine as to mutuality is an artificial rule or reciprocity and wholly lose sight of its fundamental purpose, which is simply to secure performance on the plaintiff’s part of his executory promise. The better view is that of the Circuit Court in Singer Sewing Machine Co. v. The Button Hole Co., supra. There the court held that the objection of lack of. mutuality would not prevent the enforcement of the contract so long as it was actually kept alive by plaintiff’s continued performance.”
*666In the case at bar, the sub-lease' was not unfair. The reservation of the right of the Shell Company to cancel the lease was conditioned upon a fifteen days’ notice and the payment to the appellant of $100.00. A cancellation of the lease by the Shell Company would not necessarily cause appellant any great loss, while on the other hand, the Shell Company had to go to considerable expense in painting signs, installing equipment, etc., and would lose considerably by a breach of the lease. The fact that the appellant gave the Shell Company the right to cancel the lease upon fifteen days’ notice and upon payment of $100.00 as consideration for this privilege, should not be allowed to defeat the right of either party to enforce the provisions of the sub-lease.
In Gautier, et al., v. Bradway, 87 Fla. 193, 99 So. 879, this Court, citing a number of other Florida decisions, held that applications to enforce specific performance of contracts for the sale of land are addressed to the sound judicial discretion of the chancellor, such discretion to be controlled by the principles of law and equity as applied to the facts and circumstances of the particular case, and when thus controlled his decision will not be disturbed on appeal, unless clearly erroneous. See also in this general connection Massari v. Salciccia, 102 Fla. 847, 136 So. 522; Booth v. Babbit, 114 So. 513, 94 Fla. 704; Calumet Co. v. Oil City Corp’n, 114 Fla. 531, 154 So.. 141.
The decree appealed from is accordingly affirmed.
Whitfield, P. J., and Chapman, J., concur.
Ellis, C. J., and Terrell and Buford, J. J., concur in the opinion and judgment.