DUCKWORTH, Chief Justice.
Two of the plaintiffs in error entered into employment contracts to sell petitioner's products and merchandise in specifically designated territories,
1. The petition alleging violations of negative restrictive covenants of employment contracts, which are reasonable as to time and area and not otherwise unreasonable, the court did not err in overruling the demurrers thereto as to the defendants who were parties to the contracts. While other businesses might fall within the broad category of the language used to describe the petitioner's business "or any phase thereof," it is not so indefinite and vague as to be unreasonable, such contracts being divisible as to all other businesses except those similar to the petitioner's. See Hood v. Legg, 160 Ga. 620 (4) (128 S.E. 891); Shirk v. Loftis Brothers & Co., 148 Ga. 500 (97 S.E. 66). Compare also McCullough Brothers v. Speer, 175 Ga. 521 (165 S.E. 585); Friedman v. Friedman, 209 Ga. 653 (74 S.E.2d 860).
2. But the petition fails to allege a cause of action against the
3. While plaintiffs in error sought to show by evidence that the written contracts had been on numerous occasions violated and disregarded, and as a result thereof the contracts were no longer valid and enforceable, the parties having allegedly substituted parol contracts in lieu of the written contracts, the evidence submitted was insufficient to show any departure from the restrictive covenants, although there may have been some changes in the contracts which were waived by the parties or agreed to in writing.
4. Having read with care the numerous and voluminous exceptions to rulings made by the court during the interlocutory hearing, none of which shows abuse of the court's wide discretion in hearing evidence during such a hearing, and the evidence and stipulation being sufficient to prove the allegations of the petition as against the remaining defendants, the court did not err in enjoining the former employees as prayed.
Judgment affirmed in part and reversed in part. All the Justices concur.
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