Court Opinion

ID: 9830862
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:34:26.390128+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:27.828372
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
We think we have disposed of all the contentions urged in the motion for rehearing by what we have said in the original opinion, except the additional ground presented as the eighth assignment in the motion, by which it is contended that under the prayer of the plaintiffs petition the court was not authorized to grant a temporary injunction on an ex parte hearing without notice, and, because this was done, the writ was wrongfully issued, and French could recover for profits lost during the period when the injunction was in force.
We overrule this contention. It is clear from the record that French had no right to sell the goods of his employer’s competitors until the expiration of twelve months from the date he ceased work for the appellant. Any sales which were made or could have ‘been made by him during the period of restraint were in violation of his contract, and the rule is that one who is restrained by writ of injunction from doing something he had no legal right to do cannot recover damages, though the injunction has been wrongfully issued.
As said in Guthrie v. Biethan, 25 Idaho, 706, 139 P. 718, 719:
“Under the law, a person who has been damaged by reason of having been wrongfully restrained by injunction from doing something, that he had a legal right to do may recover what damages he has sustained; but the law does not contemplate that a person may be compensated in damages for being restrained from doing a thing he had no legal right to do, for, if he had no legal right to do the act, he cannot be damaged, and has no cause of action if he be enjoined from doing an illegal act. It is held by very respectable authority that a person restrained from doing what he had no legal right to do has no action for damages, even though the injunction has been wrongfully issued. 22 Cyc. p. 1062; Parks v. O’Connor, 70 Tex. 377, 8 S. W. 104.
“In Sumner v. Crawford (Tex. Civ. App.) 41 S. W. 825, the court held that, where goods are illegally seized under execution, the plaintiff cannot recover damages by reason of an injunction to prevent a sale, sued out by the person entitled to the goods, even if the injunction were not warranted by law.
“It is clear that there must be an unjust restriction of a right to make one liable in damages for suing out a writ of injunction.”
See, also, 32 C. J. 436, § 748.
The motion is overruled.