## Facts

- Charles L. Fairbanks served as head coach and general manager of the New England Patriots under a contract extended to run through January 1983.
- The contract barred Fairbanks, during its term and without the Patriots’ permission, from providing football-related services to any other entity and from performing services of any kind for others.
- In November 1978, persons connected with or supportive of the University of Colorado sought to recruit Fairbanks to become the University’s head football coach, initially without the Patriots’ knowledge and later over the Patriots’ objections.
- Fairbanks reached an agreement with the University and told the Patriots’ owner he intended to leave at the end of the 1978 NFL season; the Patriots suspended him.
- The Patriots sued the University, certain university officials, and an individual supporter for tortious interference with contract and sought to prevent the University from employing Fairbanks.
- The district court granted a preliminary injunction enjoining the defendants from causing the University to employ Fairbanks as head football coach; Fairbanks was not a party and was not enjoined.
- Defendants took an interlocutory appeal challenging the preliminary injunction; Fairbanks submitted an amicus brief disputing the contract’s reach and arguing the injunction was unfair given the Patriots’ suspension.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court abused its discretion in granting a preliminary injunction preventing the University and related defendants from employing Fairbanks, based on an asserted likelihood of success on a tortious interference with contract claim.
2. Whether the Patriots made an adequate showing of likely success, irreparable harm, and a favorable balance of equities to justify preliminary injunctive relief.

## Decision

- The First Circuit affirmed the preliminary injunction.
- The court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding a substantial likelihood that the Patriots would succeed on the tortious interference claim.
- The court agreed that irreparable harm and the balance of hardships supported an injunction pending further proceedings.
- The court noted the injunction was limited to restraining the alleged interferers (the University and related defendants) and did not compel Fairbanks’ personal performance.

## Legal Principles

- A preliminary injunction may issue when the movant shows a substantial likelihood of success on the merits, a risk of irreparable harm absent relief, and that the balance of equities favors an injunction.
- Tortious interference with contract generally requires a valid contract, defendant’s knowledge of it, intentional and improper inducement of breach or interference, resulting interference, and damages.
- In employment and personal-services settings, courts may protect contractual expectations by enjoining third parties from knowingly employing an individual in a manner inconsistent with an existing contract, rather than ordering the individual to work.
- On interlocutory review, appellate courts assess a preliminary injunction for abuse of discretion and give deference to the district court’s factfinding and weighing of equities at the preliminary stage.

## Conclusion

The court upheld a preliminary injunction barring the University from employing Fairbanks because the record supported a reasonable finding that defendants knowingly pursued his services despite a continuing contract with the Patriots, that the Patriots faced harm not readily measured in damages, and that temporary restraint on the prospective employer was an appropriate way to preserve the status quo pending trial.


New England Patriots Football Club, Inc. v. Univ. of Colo., 592 F.2d 1196 (1st Cir. 1979)