Atlas Brick Co. v. North

2 S.W.2d 980
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 2, 1928
DocketNo. 2042.
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 2 S.W.2d 980 (Atlas Brick Co. v. North) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Atlas Brick Co. v. North, 2 S.W.2d 980 (Tex. Ct. App. 1928).

Opinion

WALTHALL, J.

This is the second appeal in this case, the former appeal being reported in 281 S. W. 608, where the case is fully stated by this court, except as to an accounting prayed for by appellant, and in 288 S. W. 146, where the opinion of the Commission of Appeals is to be found.

While the facts found by the jury on the former trial are different from the facts found on this second trial, the issues on the .two trials not being materially different, we think we may refer to the former statement of the case as showing in general outline the history of the case and the contentions made by the parties litigant, without restating *982 them at length. On this trial appellant asked for an accounting, and on that part of the case new issues are presented.

This present appeal is by the Atlas Brick Company from the judgment rendered by the district court, based upon the verdict of the jury returned and accepted by the trial court on special issues submitted, except as to one issue, which the trial court refused to accept, and of which we later state more at length. Upon the issues found by the jury, and upon the one issue which the court refused to accept, and upon the facts found by the court not submitted to the jury, the court rendered final judgment.

On the special issues submitted the jury found:

(1) The defendant, C. L. North, as a part of his employment as president and general manager of the Atlas Brick Company, did not agree to try to improve the process of manufacture of the brick.

(2) It was not at any time understood or agreed between the defendant, North, and the Atlas Brick Company, that any process or invention that North might devise or invent while operating plaintiff’s plant, for the manufacture of brick, should be the property of the Atlas Brick Company.

(3) The defendant, C. B. North, while in control and management of the plaintiff com-, pany and its properties, did not use the time, material, labor, and equipment of the company in aid of the discovery or invention of the “klinker brick.”

(4) We find the sum of $141,817.55 to be a fair price for the plaintiff company to have received for its entire product during the time the defendant, C. L. North, was president and general manager of the company.

(5) The proportionate rental value of the land leased to the Atlas Brick Company by Sheehan-North Company to the rental value of the land leased by the El Paso & Southwestern Railroad Company to the Sheehan-North Company is 33y3 per cent.

To the court’s supplemental question No. 8, submitted in lieu of defendant’s special issue No. 8, the jury found:

A net profit accrued to Sheehan-North Company, or the El Paso Building Material Company, through the sale of brick manufactured at the Atlas Brick Company plant from July 12,1920, to January 19, 1925.

The court overruled plaintiff’s motion for judgment and entered judgment as hereinafter stated. The judgment recites that the court, on the facts or issues not submitted to the jury, makes certain findings all of which we will not state at this time. The judgment further recites:

“And the court further finds that the finding of the jury to question No. 3 is contrary to, and opposed to, the overwhelming weight of the evidence, and that, if such finding should control, the judgment herein rendered, it'would be the duty of the court and the court would set aside said judgment as being against the weight of the evidence, unless the defendant would agree and grant to the plaintiff a right, without charge, to use the method of manufacturing brick which was patented to the defendant, North, by patent No. 1,440,234, and to manufacture brick by such method and sell such brick from its plant in El Paso, Tex., but not manufacture brick elsewhere; but the court does not consider that the finding of the jury to question No. 3, referred to, controls this judgment as rendered.
“Wherefore it is ordered, adjudged, and decreed that, on account of the finding of the jury to question No. 5, the plaintiff, Atlas Brick Company, have and recover from the defendant, Clarence Lupfer North, the sum of $2,409, with interest thereon from July 1, 1925, at the rate of 6 per cent, per annum until paid. It is further ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the plaintiff, Atlas Brick Company, so long as it continues in business, shall have the right to use, in its plant in El Paso, Tex., all of the rights, privileges, powers, processes, and methods in the manufacture of brick given, granted, and secured to the defendant, C. L. North, in, by, and under patent No. 1,440,234, issued by the United States of America to C. B. North, on the 26th day of December, 1922, and the right to sell the product of such manufacture, without the payment of royalty to, or any other charge by, the defendant, C. L. North, or his heirs or assigns.”

The court further decreed that as to the title to the patent sued for the plaintiff take nothing, and that the title thereto be vested in North. Both plaintiff and defendant excepted to the judgment. The court overruled plaintiff’s motion for judgment, and plaintiff excepted. Motions for new trial of each were overruled, and each assign error and appeal.

Opinion.

Appellant Atlas Brick Company’s first three propositions are, substantially, to the effect: First, that the “uncontroverted evidence” shows that at the time of discovery of the patent process appellee North was president and general manager, and as such its trustee and the alter ego of appellant company, and in the discharge of his duties the work done by North and his employees in perfecting the process and patent was done at the plant of appellant, on appellant’s time, with appellant’s money, material, and equipment, during the ordinary operation of appellant’s brick plant, “thereby vesting absolute title to patent in plaintiff.” The second proposition is to the effect that, because the “uneontroverted evidence” establishes the facts stated in the first proposition, it was error not to render judgment for appellant, for title to the patent. The third proposition recites the facts stated in the first proposition, with the additional statement that:

“Defendant, North, by adopting said process and use of same by plaintiff, destroyed former business of plaintiff in its manufacture of sand- *983 lime brick;'thereby tbe said patent No. 1,440,-234 became property of plaintiff.”

Appellant then quotes at length, from the evidence to sustain its view of what the evidence shows on the facts stated.

We do not concur in the statement, made in the propositions, that the “uncontroverted evidence” establishes all of the facts stated in the propositions, as we understand the facts stated or intended to he stated in the propositions.

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Related

Goeke v. Baumgart
92 S.W.2d 1047 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1936)
North v. Atlas Brick Co.
13 S.W.2d 59 (Texas Commission of Appeals, 1929)

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