Hamilton Automotive Mail Company Inc. HAMCO filed a complaint and a motion for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against appellee Equifax Credit Information Services, Inc., Equifax1 seeking, inter alia, to prevent Equifax from terminating the parties’ Sales Agent Agreement. Although appellant Hamilton Capital Group, Inc. HCG, who had a separate agreement with Equifax,2 was not an original party to this litigation, a temporary restraining order TRO was entered by the court on March 11, 2002, restraining and enjoining Equifax from suspending, terminating or interrupting service to either HAMCO and HCG under its respective agreements with those parties. The order also specifically required HAMCO and HCG to pay for any services provided to them pursuant to the TRO and their agreements with Equifax. It is undisputed that HCG requested services from Equifax under the terms of the TRO and Equifax provided these services. On November 7, 2002, Equifax filed a motion contending that HCG should be held in civil contempt of the TRO because HCG had failed to pay for all the services it had received from Equifax as required by the order.
At the contempt hearing, HCG argued that it should not be held in contempt of the TRO because Equifax had refused to provide it with a new “select” service which Equifax was providing to its competitors, and that as a result it had suffered a substantial loss of business. Thus, HCG argued that its failure to pay was not wilful since it resulted from this severe loss of business. The trial court found that the TRO required Equifax to provide HCG with only those services it had provided prior to the entry of the TRO, and that it was “clear” to the court that HCG continued to request services from Equifax even after Equifax had notified it that it would not provide it with the new select services. The trial court also expressed uncertainty over whether the evidence at the hearing established HCG’s inability to pay, but further noted that assuming HCG was “unable to pay for the services, then they should not have ordered the services.” The trial court thus rejected HCG’s arguments and on January 2, 2003, entered an order finding it in civil contempt of the March 8, 2002 order. The contempt order also provided that HCG could purge itself of the contempt by paying Equifax $327,182.20 within ten days of the order, but that it’s failure to purge itself would result in judgment being entered against it for that amount. HCG did not purge itself of the contempt by paying the amount ordered, and on February 7, 2003, the trial court entered final judgment in favor of Equifax. HCG appeals from both the January 2, 2003 contempt order and the February 7, 2003 judgment; these appeals were docketed in this Court as Case Numbers A03A1676 and A03A1677, respectively.
