Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 4.djvu/152

136 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. Diamond Match Co. v. Roeber (1887).! An agreement not to make or sell, except in the service of the purchaser, certain matches, within 99 years, in any State or Territory except Nevada and Montana, was held valid. The very able and full opinion in this case, in common with the last cases cited, dwells upon the extension of trade and commerce through the improvements made in the use of steam and electricity, and the consequent necessity of relaxing the rigor of the old doctrines on this subject. The last case on this subject, indeed the one in which the writer cited the above cases on his brief for the complainant, and presented the above argument, is that of Herreshoff v. Boutineau (1890).^ A temporary injunction was denied, the court intimating that the law was not as the complainant maintained. The bill was for an injunction to restrain the defendant from vio- lating his agreement not to teach the French or German languages for a year, within the State of Rhode Island. After argument, upon demurrer to the bill, the court held, in a very able opinion by Stiness, J., that neither in England nor in this country is there a rule of law that a restraint upon trade extending throughout the State is necessarily invalid. They then proceeded to examine the reasonableness of the restraint in question, and came to the conclusion that it was an unreasonable restraint, because it ex- tended more protection to the complainant than he required, and thus, without benefiting him, it oppressed the respondent, and deprived people of the chance which might be offered them, to learn the French and German languages of him. Owing to the imperfect system of reporting cases in Rhode Island, no summary of points presented and of cases cited will appear in the report of this case (or of other cases) in the forthcoming volume of Rhode Island Reports, and therefore this paper may assist some one in the future, having the same ground to go over. We conclude, therefore, that the true test, in considering the le- gality of a condition or covenant in restraint of trade, is not whether the restraint covers the whole State or Nation, but it is whether the restraint is reasonable ; and in determining this question the court will inquire whether it is necessary for the protection of the com- plainant, and is not injurious to the public. The latest decisions of the United States Supreme Court, the Court of Chancery in England, the Court of Appeals of New York, and the Supreme 1 106 N. Y. 473. « 19 Atl. Rep., p. 712.