Module 3 · Chapter 8

What Is Equity: Injunctions and Breach of Confidence

Sometimes a client needs the other side to stop, not to pay. This chapter shows where that order comes from, what a claim for misused secrets needs, and why a letter often goes first.

≈ 10 min read 8-question test

In this chapter

  • What equity adds to the common law, and what an injunction is
  • The three things a claim for breach of confidence needs
  • Why the firm writes to Dean before it asks the court for anything

8.1Equity in one paragraph

Duarte’s sixth question is this: can we make Dean stop, and get the customer list and the discount sheet back? Dean was Frescalva’s sales agent in England until March. In June he emailed Frescalva’s customers, offering a rival’s machines below their Frescalva dealer price.

Money will not mend that. Frescalva needs an order that makes him stop, and that order comes from equity: the remedies judges added where the common law could only award money. A court gives such an order when that is fair, and it may refuse. So how the client behaved, and how long it waited, both count.

Key point

A claim for money comes from the common law. An order to stop comes from equity, at the court’s choice. Delay weighs against it, so a client that waited should write before it applies.

Also in this chapter

  1. An order to stop, and where the power comes from
  2. What a claim for breach of confidence needs
  3. Writing to Dean before going to court
  4. Your job

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