Brill v. Third Ave. R.

103 F. 289, 1900 U.S. App. LEXIS 4803
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern New York
DecidedJuly 9, 1900
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 103 F. 289 (Brill v. Third Ave. R.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brill v. Third Ave. R., 103 F. 289, 1900 U.S. App. LEXIS 4803 (circtsdny 1900).

Opinion

SHIPMAN, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts). After electricity was substituted upon city railroads as a motive power to move cars formerly drawn by horses, the railroad corporations were subjected to great expense, and the passengers to severe inconvenience, in consequence of the oscillation of the cars from end to end, or “galloping” motion as it was called. The horse cars were 16 feet long, and had a wheel base or distance between the two pairs of wheels of 6 to feet. The new electric cars were from 18 to 22 feel-long, but, in consequence of the short radii of curves in city streets where cars turn from street to street, it was necessary to keep the wheel base about as short as before to enable the car to pass around the curves, and therefore the car body was longer than the truck, and overhung- it. The result was that these overhanging and unsupported ends oscillated, pounded the rails, strained the trucks, and caused discomfort, and, on heavily laden open cars, danger to the passengers. The patentee says in his specification:

“Tlie main object of my invention is to enable a truck of comparatively short wheel base to be used, and to support a car body upon it, tlie ends of which overhang the truck for some distance. My invention is also intended to overcome in a measure the end vibration or oscillation of tlie car body and movable portion of the truck to which the car is secured.”

In the patented structure a pair of rigid longitudinal side beams, which derive their support from the axle boxes, extend lengthwise of the truck beyond the wheels at each end, and are called the “independent frame.” At each side of each beam a spiral spring is interposed between the beam and the spring plates upon which the ear body rests, and to which it is rigidly secured. These spring plates are secured to a rectangular frame called the “movable portion’’ of the truck. At each side of the car there are two spring plates and four spiral springs, two between each plate, and corresponding longitudinal beam or saddle, tiras making a set of eight springs, called “axle-box springs.” These springs, supported as they are upon a space equal to the length of the wheel base, cannot firmly support a car body of the length of the ordinary trolley car, and a multiplication of spiral springs between the wheels and the end of the car was also inadequate. The gist of the invention consisted in combining with the frames of the truck and tlie spiral springs another class of springs, viz. elliptical springs, between the car body and the extensions of the independent frame. The elliptical springs are slower in their action than the spiral springs, and neutralize the longitudinal oscillation of tlie car body. Mr. Akarman, a practical trolley railroad superintendent, stated tlie result and the reason of it as follows:

“From a practical observation my opinion is that the combination of an elliptic and spiral spring- as applied in trucks of this type breaks the rhythm of motion, or interrupts it. In trucks with all spiral springs, or I should think. [292]*292if it were possible to construct, a truck having all elliptic springs, the rhythm ' of motion is perfect; the springs acting in unison. In the truck, as previously described, having the combination of elliptic and spiral springs, the rhythm is broken, and the result is that the galloping or rocking motion was done away with.”

This leading feature of the invention is described in claims 1 and 2, which do not contain the limitations of the invention described in the next paragraph. A second and minor feature of the invention, described in claims 9, 10, 11, and 14, is such an arrangement of fhe elliptical springs with the car body that they “will not come into play until after the axle-box springs have begun to compress, and the action of the spiral springs in lifting the car body is continued after the elliptical springs have ceased to act.” The elliptical springs are not depressed until the car body, or one end of it, has become depressed by the weight of the passengers, or some other cause, when this slower motion interposes, and checks the continuation or increase of oscillation. A third and more subordinate feature of the invention is described in claims 12, 17, and 27, and consists in the construction by which the elliptical springs are engaged with the independent frame of the truck and car body. One feature of this construction is that, as described by the complainant’s expert, the “upper member of the spring is not positively connected with the movable portion of the truck, but the latter is provided with a ‘cap’ or bearing piece secured to the under side of the upper chord of the movable portion, said cap having downward extending projections or legs at each side of the upper member of tbe elliptical spring, which confine the spring in proper position under the cap* while permitting of independent vertical movement of the bearing plate and spring, so that the former may, if necessary, rise clear of the spring.” The invention, as a whole, attracted the immediate attention of railway superintendents, was found to accomplish its object, and to be almost a complete remedy; and trucks having spiral springs next to the axle boxes and elliptical springs on the extensions of the truck frame have been universally adopted.

Upon the question of the novelty of the invention described in claims 1, 2,11,12, and 14 the defendant’s expert puts great stress upon letters patent No. 409,993, dated August 27, 1889, to Benjamin F. Manier. One object of Manier was to prevent oscillation, and to accomplish it he employed an extended spring base, and mounted the body springs forward of the axles. He said that oscillation was noticeable in cars mounted on trucks wherein the body springs are on both sides of the axles, and near the center of the truck, and that the mounting of the body springs forward of the axles he considered a special feature of his inveutiou. The spring's, or the kind of springs, which he was to use, are no part of his invention. He says:

“Preferably I employ spiral springs, G, as shown in Pig. 1, for supporting caps, I; but, if desired, the elliptic springs, H, could be employed, as shown in Fig. 3, or other forms of springs may be used, as found convenient and desirable; the particular form of spring not forming part of present invention.”

Manier’s invention was entirely apart from that of Brill, and had no conception of its character. The only ground upon which the expert can place his theory is that in Fig. 3 the two different forms of springs, [293]*293spiral and elliptical, are shown, and upon this drawing the entire superstructure of anticipation is built. Manier’s invention was not designed, nor adapted, nor used for the performance of the function performed by Brill’s device, nor was the way to accomplish Brill’s result suggested bv Manier’s invention. Topliff v. Topliff, 145 U. S 156, 12 Sup. Ct. 825, 36 L. Ed. 658.

In regard to claims 9, 19, 11, and 11, the defendant’s expert did not find in the prior art a. combination which included the feature of 1he compression of the spiral springs prior to the action of the elliptical springs, or a provision for bringing those springs into action subsequent to the springs supporting the movable frames; hut, as claim 9 refers to a plurality of springs, lie finds that claim to have been anticipated by the patent to Horace G-. Bird (No. 136,931) of September 9, 1890, and also that the terms of claim 10 were anticipated by the patent to John Diehl (No. 396,272) of January 15, 1889.

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Bluebook (online)
103 F. 289, 1900 U.S. App. LEXIS 4803, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brill-v-third-ave-r-circtsdny-1900.