# Presto-X-Co. v. Ewing

> Supreme Court of Iowa · June 14, 1989 · 442 N.W.2d 85

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9576494

## Case

- **Full name:** PRESTO-X-COMPANY, a Nebraska Corporation, Appellant, v. Weldon EWING, Appellee
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Iowa
- **Decided:** June 14, 1989
- **Citations:** 442 N.W.2d 85; 1989 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 171; 1989 WL 63556
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Harris
- **Judges:** Harris, Larson, Schultz, Lavorato, Neuman
- **Cited by:** 24 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9576494

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- finding that the plaintiffs harm would “be irreparable in the absence of an injunction [where] the customers [the defendant] pirated from the company would be permanently lost”
- concluding the employee breached his restrictive covenant to not compete because the employee was “prohibited ... from either soliciting or servicing his former [employer’s] customers in any direct or indirect way”
- holding that an injunction could be entered beyond the original expiration date of a restrictive covenant
- recognizing goal “to impose such terms and conditions as the justice and equities of the case require”

## Opinion text

HARRIS, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The majority concedes the employer itself breached the contract by failing to give written notice to Ewing that he was fired. This failure should preclude the employer from calling upon the court to enforce the contract. See Felton Beauty Supply Co. v. Levy, 31 S.E.2d 651, 654 (Ga.1944) (failure of employer to give contractually required notice precludes employer from obtaining injunction to enforce covenant not to compete); 54 Am.Jur.2d Monopolies § 570, at 998 (1971) (anticompetitive employment covenants held unenforceable where employer discharged employee without giving contractually required notice); Annotation, 155 A.L.R. 652 (1945). The trial court was correct in rejecting Presto-X’s request for injunctions. The failure should for the same reason also preclude Presto-X from recovering damages.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9576494. Public record. Not legal advice.