Cook Company v. Beecher/Opinion of the Court

by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

United States Supreme Court

217 U.S. 497

Cook Company  v.  Beecher

 Argued: March 14, 1910. --- Decided: May 16, 1910

This case comes here on the single question of the jurisdiction of the circuit court, certified from the court below. 172 Fed. 166. The judge dismissed the complaint of his own motion, and the defendants in error confine themselves to the suggestion that for that reason the judgment should be reversed at the cost of the plaintiff in error, concurring in the argument that the judgment was wrong. As we are of opinion that the judgment was right, it will be unnecessary to consider that point.

The suit is brought by a Connecticut corporation against residents of Connecticut. We give an abridgment of the complaint. The plaintiff is the owner of a patent for finger nail clippers. The defendants, during the time of the acts complained of, were directors in control of another Connecticut corporation, the Little River Manufacturing Company. This company infringed the patent, and the plaintiff brought a suit in equity against it in the same circuit court, which ended in a decree for an injunction, $12,871 damages, and $496.35 costs. The defendants voted to continue the sale of the infringing clipper pending the suit, and also voted and caused to be executed a bond of indemnity from their company to the selling agent, against liability for the sale. As directors and as individuals they authorized and brought about such sales, and they directed the defense of the equity suit. In consequence of the expenditures to the foregoing ends, their company became and is insolvent, and the defendants knew that that would be the result of a judgment against it, but did the acts alleged for the purpose of increasing the value of their stock in the company, and of receiving the profits and dividends that might be received from the sale.

The plaintiff's argument is that the defendants and their corporation were joint tort feasors, and that this is a suit against the defendants for their part in infringing its patent, the judgment against their cotrespasser not having been satisfied. It is unnecessary to speculate whether this is an afterthought, or whether the complaint was framed with intentional ambiguity, so that, if one cause of action failed, another might be extracted from the allegations, or what the explanation may be. But the present interpretation is not the natural interpretation of the complaint. The natural interpretation is that which was given to it by the court below; that it is an attempt to make the defendants answerable for the judgment already obtained. There was no other reason for alleging that judgment with such detail, while, on the other hand, the patent now supposed to be the foundation of the claim is not set forth. The judge was fully warranted in taking this not to be a suit upon a patent. Indeed, it would seem from his opinion that one of the grounds of jurisdiction urged before him was that this is an action ancillary to the judgment in the former suit, which, of course, is not, any more than Stillman v. Combe, 197 U.S. 436, 49 L. ed. 822, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 480; but the argument recognized that the former judgment was the foundation of the present case. Apart from that contention, there can be no question that, as the judge below said, if the directors are under obligations by Connecticut law to pay a judgment against their corporation, that is not a matter that can be litigated between citizens of the same state, in the circuit court of the United States. The only argument attempted here is that which we have stated and have decided not to be open on the complaint.

Judgment affirmed.

Notes