In Warner Bros Pictures Inc v Nelson, the actress Bette Davis agreed to work exclusively for the plaintiffs as a film actress and not to work for any other film company during the currency of her employment. She wanted to work for another film producer, but an injunction was granted to prevent her from doing so, even though the practical effect of the order was to compel her to work for the plaintiffs. The court resorted to the fiction that the defendant could take up alternative employment, but it is difficult to imagine Bette Davis in any other role than that of a film star: Warner Bros Pictures Inc v Nelson [1937] 1 KB 209, p 214

doi:10.4324/9781843141518-237

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In Warner Bros Pictures Inc v Nelson, the actress Bette Davis agreed to work exclusively for the plaintiffs as a film actress and not to work for any other film company during the currency of her employment. She wanted to work for another film producer, but an injunction was granted to prevent her from doing so, even though the practical effect of the order was to compel her to work for the plaintiffs. The court resorted to the fiction that the defendant could take up alternative employment, but it is difficult to imagine Bette Davis in any other role than that of a film star: Warner Bros Pictures Inc v Nelson [1937] 1 KB 209, p 214

ABSTRACT

Warner Bros Pictures Inc v Nelson [1937] 1 KB 209, p 214 Branson J: I turn then to the consideration of the law applicable to this case on the basis that the contract is a valid and enforceable one. It is conceded that our courts will not enforce a positive covenant of personal service; and specific performance of the positive covenants by the defendant to serve the plaintiffs is not asked in the present case. The practice of the Court of Chancery in relation to the enforcement of negative covenants is stated on the highest authority by Lord Cairns in the House of Lords in Doherty v Allman. His Lordship says: ‘My Lords, if there had been a negative covenant, I apprehend, according to well settled practice, a Court of Equity would have had no discretion to exercise. If parties, for valuable consideration, with their eyes open, contract that a particular thing shall not be done, all that a Court of Equity has to do is to say, by way of injunction, that which the parties have already said by way of covenant, that the thing shall not be done; and, in such case, the injunction does nothing more than give the sanction of the process of the court to that which already is the contract between the parties. It is not then a question of the balance of convenience or inconvenience, or of the amount of damage or of injury – it is the specific performance, by the court, of that negative bargain which the parties have made, with their eyes open, between themselves.’