Opinion
November 30, 1936.
December 7, 1936.
Equity — Injunction — Preliminary — Preservation of status quo — Sudden change of status.
The status quo which will be preserved by preliminary injunction is the last actual, peaceable, noncontested status which preceded the pending controversy; equity will not permit a wrongdoer to shelter himself behind a suddenly-changed status.
Before KEPHART, C. J., SCHAFFER, MAXEY, DREW, LINN, STERN and BARNES, JJ.
Appeal, No. 380, Jan. T., 1936, by defendant, from decree of C. P. No. 5, Phila. Co., June T., 1936, No. 1609, in case of Frank X. O'Donnell et al., individually, and as co-partners, trading as O'Donnell Brothers v. Lehigh Navigation Coal Company. Decree affirmed.
Bill in equity. Rule for mandatory injunction. Before ALESSANDRONI and LAMBERTON, JJ.
Rule made absolute and mandatory order issued. Defendant appealed.
Error assigned was decree.
George P. Orlady, with him William Jay Turner, for appellant.
Robert T. McCracken, for appellees.
Argued November 30, 1936.
The court below did not err in decreeing a mandatory injunction to restore the track pending final disposition of the case. See Jones v. Securities Commission, 298 U.S. 1, 16; Easton Passenger Ry. Co. v. Easton, 133 Pa. 505, 521; Clark v. Martin, 49 Pa. 289; Cooke v. Boynton, 135 Pa. 102; Whiteman v. Fayette Fuel-Gas Co., 139 Pa. 492. "Equity . . . will not allow itself to be baffled by a wrongful change while its aid is being invoked. The modern cases . . . have established the rule that the status quo which will be preserved . . . is the last actual, peaceable, noncontested status which preceded the pending controversy, and [it] will not permit a wrongdoer to shelter himself behind a suddenly . . . changed status . . .": Fredericks v. Huber, 180 Pa. 572. While this was said in another case on different facts it is applicable here.
Decree affirmed.