## Facts

- Lord Wellesley obtained a Chancery injunction restraining the Earl of Mornington from cutting specified trees on an estate.
- The injunction was directed only to the Earl and did not expressly extend to the Earl’s “servants or agents.”
- Batley acted as the Earl’s agent and estate manager and was personally served with the injunction, giving him actual notice of its terms.
- After receiving notice, Batley continued cutting trees in connection with estate management.
- An initial attempt to commit Batley for contempt failed on a technical objection based on the injunction’s omission of “servants and agents.”
- Wellesley then pursued a further contempt application framed directly against Batley as a person who knowingly assisted the injunction’s breach.

## Issues

1. Whether a person not named in an injunction, but with actual notice of it, may be held in contempt for knowingly assisting the enjoined party’s breach.
2. Whether the omission of “servants and agents” from the injunction’s wording bars contempt sanctions against an agent who carried out the prohibited acts with notice.

## Decision

- The court held that a person with notice of an injunction who knowingly assists in its breach may be liable for contempt even if not named in the order.
- The earlier failure to commit Batley was treated as a matter of procedural form and drafting, not a categorical immunity for agents.
- Because Batley had actual notice and acted to effect the prohibited conduct, contempt jurisdiction could reach him when the proceeding was properly brought against him.

## Legal Principles

- Injunctions may be enforced through contempt against nonparties who have actual notice and knowingly aid or participate in prohibited acts.
- An enjoined party cannot evade an injunction by acting through agents or managers who knowingly carry out the restrained conduct.
- The absence of “servants and agents” language may defeat a particular contempt application depending on how it is framed, but it does not eliminate contempt power over a nonparty who knowingly assists a breach with notice.
- Actual notice and knowing assistance are central to contempt liability for nonparties in relation to equitable orders.

## Conclusion

The court treated actual notice and knowing assistance as sufficient to subject a nonparty agent to contempt for violating an injunction, preventing restrained parties from defeating equitable orders by operating through intermediaries.


Lord Wellesley v. Earl of Mornington, 50 Eng. Rep. 786 (Ch. 1848)