Greer v. Lifsey
| Decision Date | 13 April 1973 |
| Docket Number | No. 47991,No. 2,47991,2 |
| Citation | 197 S.E.2d 846,128 Ga.App. 785 |
| Parties | , 1973-1 Trade Cases P 74,459 Cortez GREER v. Leonard H. LIFSEY |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court
A restrictive covenant in an entertainer's contract which forbids the artist from working for five years in the absence of his agent's written consent without any territorial limitation is void as being violative of Georgia's public policy relating to contracts in general restraint of trade Code Ann. § 20-504.
Sanders, Hester, Holley, Askin & Dye, William J. Williams, Augusta, for appellant.
Harrison & Jolles, Charles F. Miller, Jr., Augusta, for appellee.
In this appeal we are called upon to decide the validity of a personal services contract made by an entertainer, Cortez Greer, with Leonard H. Lifsey as his agent.
The contract designates Greer as 'Artist' and Lifsey and another individual not here involved as 'Managers.' It provided for the managers 'to act as full and exclusive agents of Artist . . . pertaining to any and all contracts, recordings, personal appearances or in any other matter wherein Artist appears as Entertainer.' Its language shows the intentions of the parties broadly to cover every area of the musical field and expressly 'not to be limited to the following, to wit: Personal appearances, recordings, endorsements, motion pictures, royalties, radio and television appearances and any other entertainment aligned (sic) thereto.' The key paragraph reads: 'Artist does fully agree, obligate and bind himself hereby that he will not for a period of 5 years from the date of this agreement, contract, agree or obligate himself for any entertainment, recording, personal appearance in the musical field, without the prior written consent of managers hereto, and fully agrees to pay managers in the event this contract is broken by artist, the sum of 50% of the gross receipts of the result of any contract, agreement, appearance, or recording done without the prior written approval and consent of managers.'
Alleging breach of this provision by the artist having without the manager's written consent contracted for entertainment and personal appearances, Lifsey filed this suit for monetary damages. In answering, among other defenses, Cortez Greer attacked the agreement as being legally invalid, this contention being based principally upon the contract reciting 'no limit as to the geographical area.' (R.12). Making use of the procedural device provided in Section 12(d) of the Civil Practice Act (Code Ann. § 81A-112), defendant Greer moved for a determination by a preliminary hearing as to the merits of this special defense. The trial court ruled adversely to the Artist but granted a certificate of immediate review which authorized this direct appeal.
1. As a negative covenant ancillary to a contract of employment, it is essential to the validity of the contract that it contain a reasonable limitation both as to time and territory. Thus, Edwin K. Williams & Co.-East v. Padgett, 226 Ga. 613, 176 S.E.2d 800, ruled void a contract containing a reasonable time limitation but having no limit as to territory in which the employee was permitted to solicit business after termination. It is obvious that the contract before us is completely silent as to geographical area. Recognizing this absence of a territorial limitation, counsel for plaintiff argues 'In fact, to have limited this appellant who is an accomplished artist and entertainer as an individual, in a geographical sense would have been unreasonable in that it is a matter of common knowledge that artists and entertainers of substance perform over wide spread areas of the entire civilized world.' We are unable to accept this thesis, even though the record shows the artist to have entertained in various places in our country as well as in Puerto Rico and the Bahamas.
Watkins v. Avnet, Inc., 122 Ga.App. 474, 476, 177 S.E.2d 582, 583. ...
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