p. 237Dunlap’s Cable News Company, App’lt, v. David M. Stone, as Pres’t of the N. Y. Associated Press, Resp’t.(Supreme Court, General Term, First Department,An unincorporated association engaged in the business of collecting and furnishing news to the newspapers.will not, at the instance of a foreign corporation organized for the same purpose, be restrained by injunction from enforcing a by-law that its members shall not take news from other news agencies.
Plaintiffs, incorporated under tne laws of New Jersey for the purpose of collecting and furnishing news to newspapers, brought an action against defendant, an unincorporated association carrying on the same business in the state of New York.
The defendant had a by-law forbidding any of its members from entering into any arrangement for taking news from any other news agencies, and plaintiff asked that the defendant and said New York Associated Press, its officers, agents or servants, and each of them, be enjoined “ from addressing any communications or letters to any newspapers, their publishers or editors, threatening to withdraw, and also from withdrawing, the services of said New York Associated Press to said newspapers in case they continue to avail themselves of the services of this plaintiff; and that they further be directed to withdraw and countermand such as have already been sent; and that the New York Associated Press be further enjoined from enforcing, or attempting to enforce, in any mode or manner whatsoever, the said by-law in any way unlawfully interfering with the business of this plaintiff. ”
The special term denied plaintiffs’ motion for an injunction pendente lite and they brought this appeal.
Nathan Bijur, for app’lt; A. G. McDonald, fo resp’t
—The plaintiff’s application amounted to nothing more nor less than an attempt to restrain the defendants from transacting their lawful business in their own way, lest in doing so the plaintiff’s rival business should be injured or diminished. The defendant’s have a perfect right to limit the sale of the news
p. 238which they collect to those who contract to deal exclusively with them. They are private individuals, dealing, it is true, with a large public, but governed by no corporate duty or statutory obligation. They certainly owe no duty to the plaintiff, which is a foreign corporation attempting to compete with them, and with whom they have no privity or relations of any kind..
When one of the defendant’s customers comes forward as a suitor it will be time enough to consider whether such customer can with impunity violate his contract, and while dealing with the plaintiff demand a continuance of the defendant’s services. It certainly is an extraordinary demand on the part of a competitor that the defendants be enjoined from enforcing their agreements with their customers, or from refusing to accept new customers without the ordinary limitation as to exclusive dealing. The plaintiff has no standing to maintain such an action, and its complaint is devoid of equity. It may be added that the injunction sought was almost in the precise terms of the prayer for relief, and the granting of it would have been equivalent to final judgment before trial. Such an injunction is only granted in an extreme case and where the right is absolutely clear. No such case has here been presented, but rather the reverse. The application for an injunction pendente lite was, therefore, without merit, and was properly refused.
The order appealed from should be affirmed, with costs. ‘
Patterson J., concurs.