Interlocutory injunctions: american cyanamid comes of age

AuthorJill Martin
PositionProfessor of Law, University of London (King's College)
Pages76-95
INTERLOCUTORY INJUNCTIONS:
AMERICAN CYANAMID COMES OF AGE
JILL MARTIN*
In February 1975 the House of Lords delivered judgment in the
landmark decision, American Cyanamid Co. v. Ethicon
Ltd.,1
which
restated, or some would say revolutionised, the principles applicable
to the grant of interlocutory injunctions. Now that the House of Lords'
baby has reached the age of majority, it might be opportune to review
how the principles have worked, and in particular to consider the
growing number of exceptional cases where the American Cyanamid
principles have been held inapplicable. American Cyanamid altered the
previous practice by holding that a plaintiff seeking an interlocutory
injunction need no longer establish a prima facie case, but only that
there was a serious question to be tried, in which case the grant or
refusal of the injunction should be governed by the balance of
convenience. This review will concentrate on those areas in which it
has become apparent that the balance of convenience should not be the
governing factor, and that a just result can only be achieved by
requiring the plaintiff to establish at least a prima facie case, as under
the previous law.
The previous principles were stated in the House of Lords in
J.
T.
Stratford
& Son Ltd. v. Lindley:2 a plaintiff seeking an
interlocutory injunction "must establish a prima facie case" of some
breach of duty by the defendant to him. The point was not argued, but
this principle had been well settled for many years. It was only after
establishing
a
prima facie case, in other words that it was more likely
than not that the plaintiff would be successful at the trial, that other
matters such as the inadequacy of damages and the balance of
convenience came into play. Lord Denning, writing in The Closing
Chapter,3 put the matter thus: "But then in 1975 all our principles
Professor of Law, University of London (King's College). This article was
first presented as the subject-matter of the second Anthony Bland Memorial
Lecture given by the author at the Faculty of Law, University of the West
Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados, in February 1993.
1 [19751 A.C.396.
2 [1965] A.C. 269 at 338.
3 (1983), p.259.
were shattered and our experience overthrown by the judgment of the
House of Lords in American Cyanamid Co. v. Ethicon Ltd."
The new principles laid down by Lord Diplock in American
Cyanamid were, briefly, as follows: (i) the court must be satisfied that
the plaintiff's case is not frivolous or vexatious and that there is a
serious question to be tried; (ii) if so, the governing consideration is
the balance of convenience; (iii) a significant factor in assessing the
balance of convenience is the inadequacy of damages to each party;
(iv) if the balance of convenience does not clearly favour either party,
the preservation of the status quo will be decisive; (v) only as a last
resort should the relative strength of each party's case be taken into
account in tipping the balance; (vii) finally, "other special factors" may
have to be considered in individual cases.
The members of the House of Lords unanimously agreed with Lord
Diplock's view that there was no rule requiring the plaintiff to establish
a prima facie case. The new formulation was "designed to circumvent
the necessity of deciding disputed facts or determining points of law
without hearing sufficient argument."4 The view was that the court's
discretion would be unduly fettered if the injunction could only be
granted if the plaintiff could show that he was more than 50 per cent
likely to succeed at the trial, bearing in mind that difficult points of
law and conflicts of evidence, which was incomplete and untested by
cross-examination, could not be resolved at the interlocutory stage.
Interestingly, only a few months before American Cyanamid there
was another leading case on interlocutory injunctions, Hoffman-La
Roche (F.) & Co. v. Secretary of State for Trade and Industry,5 where
Lord Diplock
himself,
after reviewing the history of the remedy, had
said that the plaintiff had to show "a strong prima facie case that he
will be entitled to a final order." Neither this case nor Stratford was
referred to in American Cyanamid.
4 Smith v. Inner London Education Authority [1978] 1 All E.R. 411 at 426.
There may, however, be some cases where it would be appropriate to
resolve questions of law at the interlocutory stage: Associated
British
Ports
v.
T.G.W.U.
[1989] 1 W.L.R. 939 at 979, 980; R. v. Secretary for
Transport, ex p. Factortame [1991] A.C. 603 at 677.
5 [1975] A.C. 295 at 360.

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