A boxing manager and promoter sought injunctive relief to restrain the defendant from interfering with a management contract between himself and B, a talented young boxer, and from acting for B in B’s professional career. B was at his request joined to the proceedings. An injunction was refused at first instance.
Held: No injunction would be granted.
Nourse LJ said: ‘It is well settled that an injunction to restrain a breach of contract for personal services ought not to be granted where its effect will be to decree performance of the contract. Speaking generally, there is no comparable objection to the grant of an injunction restraining the performance of particular services for a third party, because, by not prohibiting the performance of other services, it does not bind the servant to his contract. But a difficulty can arise, usually in the entertainment or sporting worlds, where the services are inseparable from the exercise of some special skill or talent, whose continued display is essential to the psychological and material, and sometimes to the physical, well being of the servant. The difficulty does not reside in any beguilement of the court into looking more tenderly on such who breach their contracts, glamorous though they often are. It is that the human necessity of maintaining the skill or talent may practically bind the servant to the contract, compelling him to perform it.’ and ‘This consideration of the authorities has led us to believe that the following general principles are applicable to the grant or refusal of an injunction to enforce performance of the servant’s negative obligations in a contract for personal services inseparable from the exercise of some special skill or talent. (We use the expressions ‘master’ and ‘servant’ for ease of reference and not out of any regard for the reality of the relationship in many of these cases.) In such a case the court ought not to enforce the performance of the negative obligations if their enforcement will effectively compel the servant to perform his positive obligations under the contract. Compulsion is a question to be decided on the facts of each case, with a realistic regard for the probable reaction of an injunction on the psychological and material, and sometimes the physical, need of the servant to maintain the skill or talent. The longer the term, for which an injunction is sought, the more readily will compulsion be inferred. Compulsion may be inferred where the injunction is sought not against the servant but against a third party if either the third party is the only other available master or if it is likely that the master will seek relief against anyone who attempts to replace him. An injunction will less readily be granted where there are obligations of mutual trust and confidence, more especially where the servant’s trust in the master may have been betrayed or his confidence in him has genuinely gone.’
Nourse LJ
[1989] 1 WLR 853
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – In re Regent Hotels (UK) Ltd v Pageguide Ltd CA 10-May-1985
The court was concerned with a long-term management contract for the Dorchester Hotel between Regent as managers and Pageguide. When Regent sold the hotel to Pageguide the management contract would continue and be novated (with some amendment) as . .
Cited by:
Cited – Lady Navigation Inc v Lauritzencool Ab and Another CA 17-May-2005
The shipowner appealed the award against them of an injunction requiring them not to act inconsistently with a time charterparty. The company said that such a form of order was improper.
Held: The existence of the contract to do what was . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Litigation Practice
Updated: 16 November 2021; Ref: scu.225446