CONTRACTS AND COMBINATIONS IN RESTRAINT OF TRADE PART 1 THE COMMON LAW CHAPTER I CONTRACTS TO REFRAIN FROM DOING BUSINESS OR SECTION 1 THE MERE CONTRACT TO REFRAIN FROM DOING BUSINESS, OR FROM ENTERING AND CARRYING ON AN OCCUPATION §1. It was long ago assumed that a contract not to engage in a given business or occupation would be void where the promisor was already engaged in it and the promisee was not and did not intend to be.1 1-Mitchel v. Reynolds, 1 P. Wms. 181 (171) [9] (numbers in square brackets throughout the notes to this volume refer to the pages of the author's "Cases on Contracts and Combinations in Restraint of Trade') (“. . . for suppose (as that case seems to be) a poor weaver, having just met with a great loss, should, in a fit of passion and concern, be exclaiming against his trade, and declare, that he would not follow it any more, etc., at which instant, some deKales Sum. R. of T.-1 1 signing fellow should work him up to such a pitch as, for a trifling matter, to give a bond not to work it again, and afterwards, when the necessities of his family, and the cries of his children, send him to the loom, should take advantage of the forfeiture, and put the bond in suit; I must own, I think this such a piece of villainy, as is hard to find a name for; and therefore cannot but approve of the indignation that judge expressed, though not his manner of expressing it.") |