Caswell v. Gibbs
| Decision Date | 21 January 1876 |
| Citation | 33 Mich. 331 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | Robert Caswell and another v. Chauncey Gibbs |
Heard January 14, 1876
Appeal in Chancery from Mason Circuit.
Decree affirmed in part and modified in part.
H. H Wheeler and C. G. Wing, for complainants
White & Haight, for defendant.
We do not deem it necessary to discuss the various questions raised in this case, as we are in the outset met with some serious difficulties in the way of granting the relief prayed for.
The bill was filed to restrain defendant from violating the following contract:
This agreement is not set forth in full in the bill of complaint, but is there treated and referred to as an agreement that the said Gibbs and Maxim, "each contracting for himself separately, would never tow vessels in competition with your orators, to wit: at the port of Ludington."
It is thus apparent that counsel recognized the necessity of restricting and limiting the agreement in respect to the place at which such towing was not to be done. There is no such limitation in the agreement, nor is there anything in it from which such a limitation could be inferred. While there may be, and undoubtedly are cases where a contract general in its terms as to the place or extend of territory over which it should extend, as in Hubbard v. Miller, 27 Mich. 15, may, in the light of all the surrounding circumstances, be so construed that effect can be given to it, yet it is not always easy or safe to thus construe and then enforce it. Many cases must arise, and we think this one of them, where there would be no certainty that the contract as thus construed and limited was the one which the parties had in mind and intended to provide for in their agreement. But without disposing of the case upon this point, and admitting for the present that it might be so restricted, there are still other serious difficulties to be encountered in the way of enforcing such an agreement.
This is not an agreement on the part of defendant Gibbs that he will not thereafter tow vessels at Ludington while complainants are engaged in that business, but it is that he will not tow vessels in competition with com...
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