Padover v. Axelson
| Decision Date | 28 June 1929 |
| Parties | PADOVER v. AXELSON et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Whiting, Judge.
Suit by Simon Padover against Sydney Axelson, Charlotte Smith, and others. Decree for plaintiff, and defendants, with the exception of defendant last named, appeal. Reversed and rendered.
L. A. Mayberry and W. F. Levis, both of Boston, for appellants.
E. Mark Sullivan, of Boston, for appellee.
This suit in equity is brought to restrain the individual defendants from disclosing information concerning the plaintiff's business and from soliciting customers of the plaintiff who were such customers on the defendants' routes when the employment of the individual defendants by the plaintiff terminated, and to restrain the defendant corporation from employing the individual defendants. In the Superior Court a decree was entered restraining the defendants Axelson, Wilson and Woolf for one year from soliciting the plaintiff's customers, and restraining the defendant corporation for one year from employing these individuals in soliciting the customers of the plaintiff who were served by the individual defendants while in the plaintiff's employment. Damages were awarded. The defendants, with the exception of the defendant Smith, appealed.
The plaintiff for many years was engaged in the business of dyeing and cleansing fabrics. The individual appellants had been employed by him as drivers of trucks, as collectors and solicitors. The business was carried on in this manner: Tailors receive from customers garments to be cleansed or dyed; the employees of the wholesale cleanser collect the garments from the tailors and when finished deliver them. This field from which the work is obtained is divided into separate routes, to each of which a solicitor is assigned. The judge found that the employer ordinarily is not acquainted with the tailors. ‘The patronage of such tailors is retained by the service afforded by the solicitors and by the personality of the latter.’ In the practical operation of the wholesale cleansing business substantially all the business is originally obtained by solicitation.
About eighteen months before the filing of the bill of complaint many of the tailors who were customers of the plaintiff ceased to give their work to the plaintiff because of a disagreement as to price. The defendant corporation was organized on October 2, 1928. It did not begin its business operations until the week of December 10, 1928, which operations, the judge found, ‘included the soliciting of business from tailors.’ Axelson's employment with the plaintiff ended October 29, 1928, Wilson's October 31, 1928, and Woolf's November 3, 1928. The defendant corporation was organized for carrying on the same line of business as the plaintiff's, and maintains a plant in the same locality as the plaintiff's place of business. Axelson, Wilson and Woolf are stockholders and officers in the defendant corporation. After December 10, 1928, Axelson, Wilson and Woolf solicited business from the former patrons of the plaintiff and were successful in obtaining from thirty-three per cent. of fifty per cent. of the tailors whom they served while in the employ of the plaintiff. Prior to entering the plaintiff's employment, Axelson had been employed by another cleansing concern as a solicitor and brought with him to the plaintiff substantially ‘all of the patronage so enjoyed by him.’ Wilson had been in the employment of the plaintiff for about six years; in the district where he worked the number of the plaintiff's customers was increased. ‘So far as the city of Brockton is concerned, at the time of Woolf's employment the plaintiff had no customers in such cuty, and most of the patronage thereafter enjoyed by the plaintiff therein resulted from Woolf's original solicitation.’ As we construe the findings of the trial judge, no written list of the plaintiff's customers was given to the individual defendants. The plaintiff endeavored to have Axelson, Wilson and Woolf sign a written contract, but they refused; and it was found that they did not during their employment with the plaintiff seek to entice from the plaintiff his customers. The plaintiff's bill was filed January 3, 1929.
There was no written contract preventing Axelson, Wilson and Woolf from entering the employment of a competitor of the plaintiff, and there was no finding of any oral contract of this kind. No written or printed list of the plaintiff's customers...
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