Employment Injunction in UK Law

Sufficiency of confidence must be judged by reference to the circumstances of the case, including the nature of the work, the people with whom the work must be done and the likely effect upon the employer and the employer's operations if the employer is required by injunction to suffer the plaintiff to continue in the work.

Compulsion is a question to be decided on the facts of each case, with a realistic regard for the probable reaction of an injunction on the psychological and material, and sometimes the physical, need of the servant to maintain the skill or talent. The longer the term for which an injunction is sought, the more readily will compulsion be inferred.

I would not, however, look for new categories in which to pigeonhole new exceptions to this rule as it works either for the employer or the employee, but I would make exceptions in accordance with the general principleon which discretionary remedies are granted, namely, where, and only where, an injunction is required by justice and equity in a particular case, and, at the interim stage, by the balance of convenience.

Very rarely indeed will a Court enforce, either by specific performance or by injunction, a contract for services, either at the behest of the employers or of the employee. The reason is obvious: if one party has no faith in the honesty or integrity or the loyalty of the other, to force him to serve or to employ that other is a plain recipe for disaster.

(v) The question of reasonableness has to be asked as of the outset of the contract, looking forwards, as a matter of the covenant's meaning, and not in the light of matters that have subsequently taken place (save to the extent that those throw any general light on what might have been fairly contemplated on a reasonable view of the clause's meaning).

Terms which operate in the restraint of trade raise questions of public policy. The opportunity for an individual to maintain and exercise his skills is a matter of general concern. I would therefore leave open the possibility that in an exceptional case where a long period of garden leave had already elapsed, perhaps substantially in excess of a year, without any curtailment by the court, the court would decline to grant any further protection based on a restrictive covenant.

Suppose, however, that the master insists on the employment terminating on the named day? In the ordinary course of things, the relationship of master and servant thereupon comes to an end: for it is inconsistent with the confidential nature of the relationship that it should continue contrary to the will of one of the parties thereto As Lord Kilmuir said in Vine v. National Dock Labour Board (1957) A. C., referring at page 500 to the ordinary master and servant case: