INJUNCTION, in English law, the name for a judicial command whereby a party is required to refrain from doing a particular thing according to the exigency of the writ. Formerly it was a remedy peculiar to the court of chancery, but under the present constitution of the judicature, the injunction is now equally available in all the divisions of the high court of justice, and it can no longer be used to prevent an action in any of them from proceeding in the ordinary course.
Although an, injunction is properly a restraining order, there are instances in which, under the form of a prohibition, a positive order to do something is virtually expressed by what is known as a "mandatory" injunction. The injunction was used to stay pro ceedings in other courts "wherever a party by fraud, accident, mistake or otherwise had obtained an advantage in proceeding in a court of ordinary jurisdiction, which must necessarily make that court an instrument of injustice." As the injunction operates personally on the defendant, it may be used to prevent applica tions to foreign judicatures; but it is not used to prevent applica tions to parliament, or to the legislature of any foreign country, unless such applications be in breach of some agreement, and relate to matters of private interest. The jurisdiction of the court to prevent breaches of contract has been described as supple mental to its power of compelling specific performance ; thus, e.g., in the case of an agreement of a singer to perform at the plaintiff's theatre and at no other, the court, although it could not compel her to sing, could by injunction prevent her from singing elsewhere in breach of her agreement.
An injunction may as a general rule be obtained to prevent acts which are violations of legal rights, except when the same may be adequately remedied by an action for damages at law. Thus the court will interfere by injunction to prevent waste, or the destruction by a limited owner, such as a tenant for life, of things forming part of the inheritance. Injunctions may also be obtained to prevent the continuance of nuisances, public or pri vate, the infringement of patents, copyrights and trade marks. Trespass might also in certain cases be prevented by injunction. Purely temporary injunctions may be obtained ex parte but others only on notice to the other side.
An injunction obtained on interlocutory application during the progress of an action is called an "interim" injunction, which is superseded by the trial. It may be continued either provision ally or permanently. (See MANDAMUS, WRIT OF.) For the analogous practice in Scots law see INTERDICT. (X.) United States.—Despite the administration of law and equity by a single court, as is true of most American States, the remedy by injunction retains its essentially equitable character. Its issuance is governed, in the main, by the accepted precedents of equity. A recent extension of the injunction on the principle of equitable jurisdiction over nuisances is the use of the remedy to aid in the enforcement of criminal laws. The fact that the pro ceedings relating to the issuance and enforcement of injunctions are conducted before a judge alone, eliminates the inevitable discretion that under the common law system is vested in a jury. Consequently, when the enforcement of a particular law becomes difficult because of the opposition of a particular community as manifested in the tendency of juries to acquit in criminal prose cutions, resort has been made to this head of equity jurisdiction. The popularly termed "padlock injunction" established by the National Prohibition Act, which results in prohibiting for a period of time any use of the premises in which liquor has been sold, is the most marked example of this type. Its effectiveness is at tested to by the adoption of similar remedies by the numerous State prohibition acts.
Peculiar to the American federalist system is the problem of Federal courts enjoining proceedings in State courts and vice versa. The general principle is that no such injunctions shall issue; but being courts of concurrent jurisdiction either court that first obtains jurisdiction of the subject matters regards itself as entitled to retain that jurisdiction to the exclusion of the other court and employs the injunction in aid of this purpose. The friction that might result from a liberal use of the injunction was foreseen at an early date, and in 1793 Congress prohibited the use of the injunction by the Federal courts for this purpose save in bankruptcy cases. The Federal courts have, however, by a series of judicial decisions established numerous exceptions to this broad statutory provision among which is that noted above and the principle that the injunction will issue in aid of the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal courts. A second ground of irritation concerned the use of the injunction by the Federal courts to restrain the enforcement of State statutes on the ground of their constitutionality. An appeal from such action lay to the U.S. Supreme Court, but during the interim a single Federal judge was able to set at naught the entire administrative author ity of a State. The incongruity of this result led Congress by a series of statutes beginning in 1910 to prohibit the issuance of such injunctions before a court consisting of less than three judges, one of whom should be a circuit judge, and to provide for expediting an appeal therefrom to the Supreme Court. Limita tions have also been imposed upon the power of Federal judges to issue ex parte restraining orders pending an application for a temporary injunction. (J. M. LA.) Injunctions in Labour Disputes.—The devices to induce the employer to yield to demands of organized labour through eco nomic and social pressure are, broadly, the strike, the picket line, the boycott. The application of these instruments is illegal in all jurisdictions when accompanied by violence, intimidation or physical coercion; but is permissible in many States when free from those vices if the end sought to be achieved thereby be deemed a justification for the immediate damage inflicted upon the complainant. The Anglo-Saxon legal system provides three remedies for acts that cause damage unjustifiably : an action at law for damages, criminal proceedings if the infliction of damage amounts to a crime, and the equitable action for an injunction to restrain the commencement or continuance of damaging acts threatened or begun. The English case of Springhead Spinning Co. v. Riley (1868) L.R. 6 Eq. 551, in approving injunctive relief against the publishing of placards of an intimidating nature in the course of a labour dispute, supplied the precedent for the earliest American cases in the decade following 1884. The Debs case in 1895 (158 U.S. 564), which granted an injunction at the suit of the national Government, gave final sanction to the propriety of equitable relief in labour controversies. Within the next decade instances of labour injunctions multiplied so extensively as to evoke, in the words of a Supreme Court justice, a "controversy over the remedy (that) overshadowed in bitterness the question of the relative substantive rights of the parties" ( Truax v. Corrigan, 257 U.S. 312, 366). In the period prior to the enactment of cor rective legislation in 1914, there issued from American courts well over 50o injunctions; and after 1914, despite the Federal legis lation, duplicated in many States, the number of injunctions con tinued unabated.
Injunctions are of three general classes: (I) the temporary re straining order or injunction ad interim, which issues upon the filing of the bill of complaint, without notice to the opposing side or opportunity to be heard, on the ground that irreparable damage might be inflicted before a hearing could be had ; the temporary injunction or injunction pendente lite, which issues after notice and opportunity of the defence to be heard upon its countervail ing affidavits. This hearing is only full enough to enable the judge to decide upon the probabilities of the situation. The court's dis cretion is "of the broadest and is seldom interfered with"; (3) the permanent injunction which issues after extended hearings and final decision on the merits.
The case is given a formal hearing before a judge and with out a jury; facts are generally ascertained through sworn written statements or affidavits rather than through testimony in open court tested by cross-examination. A violation of the injunction, at any of its stages, whether or not the act is independently a crime, is a contempt of court. The alleged contemnor is tried before the judge who granted the injunction and (in the absence of contrary legislation) without a jury; the normal mode of proof is by affidavit, though some courts in recent years have summoned witnesses to establish the facts; the punishment of those adjudged guilty is in the discretion of the court and in fact has ranged from a small fine to imprisonment for days and months.
The injunction issues against the parties defendant who have been subjected to the court's jurisdiction. Frequently, especially in the Federal courts, an omnibus clause is added in order to extend the prohibitions of the decree to "all persons combining and conspiring with the defendants and all other persons whom soever" (e.g., In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564) ; then the persons served with the decree and "all persons generally" who have actual knowl edge thereof are bound to its obedience at the peril of being cited for contempt of court (Ex parte Lennon, 166 U.S. 546). The re straining clauses of the injunction, intended to embrace whatever conduct the court deems illegal, have become more and more elab orate, owing in large degree to the fact that the decree is custom arily approved as prepared by counsel for the complainant. The proscriptions have included not only acts of violence, intimidation and threats, but also the display of "unfair" banners and placards, "unlawful persuasion" of employees to quit work or of customers to withhold patronage, the payment of strike benefits and, at times, the calling of a strike or its conduct by trade union officers. They have included restrictions upon speech—"abusive language," "bad language," "opprobrious epithets," "jeers, entreaties, argu ment, persuasion, taunts." They have incorporated omnibus inter dictions by restraining damage "in any way," "in any way what soever," "in any manner directly or indirectly." (See text of re straining clauses of two Federal injunctions in 37 Harvard Law Rev. I 1O1.) More recently, however, appellate courts have modified decrees whose phrasing barred lawful acts with the unlawful ; they have even given affirmative suggestions as to what acts remained per missible and have defined them in detail.
Legislation.—The serious criticism of the propriety of the in junctions in labour disputes provoked State legislatures and Con gress to efforts at corrective measures. Arizona in 1913 enacted legislation forbidding the issue of injunctions in labour disputes "unless necessary to prevent irreparable injury to property" and denying the power of courts of equity to restrain "any person or persons from terminating any relation of employment or from ceasing to perform any work or labour or from recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful means so to do ; or from attending at or near a house or place where any person resides or works, or carries on business, or happens to be for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or of peace fully persuading any person to work or to abstain from working; or from ceasing to patronize or to employ any party to such dis pute ; or from recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful means so to do. . . ." The Supreme Court of the United States (four justices dissenting) held the statute to entail a dep rivation of property without due process of law, a denial of the equal protection of the laws and, therefore, a contravention of the i4th amendment to the Constitution of the United States (Truax v. Corrigan, 1921, 257 U.S. 312).
The Clayton Act passed by Congress in 1914 used language (s. 2o) essentially similar to that of the Arizona statute but was construed by the U.S. Supreme Court as "merely declaratory of what had always been the law and the best practice in equity" ; the injunction might still issue against picketing deemed unlawful by the court (American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Trade Council, 1921, 257 U.S. 184) and against the secondary boycott (Bedford Cut Stone Co. v. Journeymen Stonecutters' Assoc., 1927, 274 U.S. 37). Subsequent State legislation, following s. 20 of the Clayton Act, received a corresponding construction (Gevas v. Greek Res taurant Workers' Club, et al., 1926, 99 N.J. Eq. 77o).
Section 22 of the Clayton Act granted the right of jury trial in proceedings for indirect contempt, where the act alleged to con stitute the contempt is also a crime. This provision survived an attack based upon the doctrine that the power of a court of equity could not be restricted because inherent and derived from the con stitutional grant of judicial power (Michaelson v. United States, 1924, 266 U.S. 42). In Massachusetts, the doctrine of separation of powers prevailed (Walton Lunch Co. v. Kearney, 192o, 236 Mass. 31o). Section 17 of the Clayton Act restricted the issue of temporary restraining orders without notice and required a hear ing to be held within ten days of ter issue of such order; s. 19 required the injunction to be specific in terms. In the loth Con gress (Dec., 1927), new legislation was introduced, further re stricting the use of injunctions in labour disputes in the Federal courts.
Decisions in State Courts are Bossert v. Dhuy (1917) 221 N.Y. 342; Auburn Draying Co. v. Wardell (1919) 227 N.Y. 1 ; Exchange Bakery and Restaurant, Inc. v. Rifkin, et al. (1927) 245 N.Y. 26o; Interbor ough Rapid Transit Co. v. Lavin (1928) 247 N.Y. 65; Vegelahn v. Guntner (1896), 167 Mass. 92; Pierce v. Stablemen's Union (19°9), 156 Cal. 7o; Greenfield v. Central Labor Council (1922), Io4 Oregon 236; Keuffel and Esser v. Int. Assoc. Machinists (1922), 93 N.J. En. 429; Jefferson and Indiana Coal Co. v. Marks, et al. (1926), 287 Pa. 171.
The most important collection of source authorities is Sayre, Cases on Labor Law (1922). The leading legal discussions of the subject are: W. H. Dunbar, "Government by Injunction" (1897), 13 Law Quarterly Review 347; E. E. Witte, "Value of Injunctions in Labor Disputes" (1924), 32 Journal of Pol. Econ., and "Results of Injunctions in Labor Disputes" (1922), 12 Amer. Labor Legisl. Rev.; G. W. Pepper, "Injunctions in Labor Disputes" 49 Rep. of the Amer. Bar Assn., 174 ; Frankfurter and Greene, "The Use of the Injunction in American Labor Controversies" (1928), 44 Law Quart. Review 164, 353 ; T. R. Powell, "The Supreme Court's Control over the Issue of Injunctions in Labor Disputes," 13 Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science (June, 1928) ; Mason, Organized Labor and The Law (1925) ; Commons and Andrews, Principals of Labor Legislation (1920) ; Annotations in 34 Harv. L. Rev. 884, 4o Harv. L. Rev. 886, 41 Harv. L. Rev. 908.
Testimony taken in the course of Congressional hearings is valuable. The references to 1914 are collected by Mr. Justice Brandeis in his dis senting opinion to Truax v. Corrigan (192I), 257 U.S. 312, 354, 37o. Add Senate hearings on S. 1482, loth Cong. 1st Sess. (Feb.–March 1928), limiting scope of injunctions in labor disputes. (N. G.)