Clair v. Kastar, Inc.

70 F. Supp. 484, 73 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 347, 1946 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1788
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedDecember 23, 1946
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 70 F. Supp. 484 (Clair v. Kastar, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Clair v. Kastar, Inc., 70 F. Supp. 484, 73 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 347, 1946 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1788 (S.D.N.Y. 1946).

Opinion

CAFFEY, District Judge.

In this action an interlocutory judgment was entered June 28, 1945, holding that defendant had infringed claim 2 of U. S. Letters Patent, No. 1,577,821, issued to William P. Campbell, under date of March 23, 1926, by the manufacture, sale and use of automobile steering stabilizers, i. e., devices intended to prevent wobbling or shimmying of the front wheels in automobiles, designated by defendant as its models 73 and 74. The judgment directed that plaintiffs recover from defendant, for the period of December 30, 1936, to March 23, 1943, all the profits, gains and advantages which it had derived, received, earned or made, and all damages which plaintiffs had sustained, by reason of the infringements.

A Special Master was appointed to take and state an account of such profits, gains, advantages and damages and to report thereon. He was also directed to receive evidence indicating the presence or absence of conscious and deliberate infringement, to make findings thereon and to report the same.

In February, 1946, before the Master had begun the taking of testimony, defendant moved to amend the judgment by limiting the period of the accounting to the period from December 1, 1941, to March 23, 1943, or, in the alternative, to the period from February 18, 1941, to March 23, 1943. On March 22, 1946, an order was entered denying the motion, without prejudice to the right of defendant, on the coming in of the Master’s report, to claim that the proper period of the accounting was either from January 26, 1942, to March 23, 1943, or from February 18, 1941, to March 23, 1943, and directing the Master to take and state the account for the period set forth in the judgment; also for each of the two other periods, separately.

The Master filed his report on September 19, 1946. Plaintiffs now move to confirm it with three exceptions. Defendant has filed twelve exceptions to the report and moves to limit the accounting period to one of the two periods claimed by it to be the proper accounting period.

Plaintiffs’ exceptions will be considered first. They are that the Master erred in (1) allowing, as an item of indirect costs and general overhead, the monies drawn by the owners of defendant as salaries, (2) charging losses sustained in 1938 and 1939 of $288.07 and $57.37, respectively, against the total net profits on model 73 for the accounting period, and (3) not finding defendant’s infringement to be conscious and deliberate and awarding plaintiffs damages accordingly.

Should salaries have been allowed as a deduction?

Defendant was incorporated in 1929. It is engaged in manufacturing and selling automobile specialties throughout the United States. The officers and directors are, and have been, Samuel Kaplan, who is the president, Louis Stark, who is the secretary and treasurer, and Miss Sundell, who is the office manager. She owns only nominal shares, the rest being owned equally by Kaplan and Stark, who are the only high *486 salaried officers, and who do all of the work in connection with defendant’s merchandising.

In accordance with the Master’s direction, various statements of defendant’s business, prepared by Michael Rosen, its accountant for ten years, were received. Plaintiffs stipulated that they did not question the accuracy of the figures or the propriety of the method of calculating profits, but objected only to the inclusion of certain items therein.

In calculating the net profits there were deducted all payments for legal fees in connection with suits involving infringements by models 73 and 74 and payments made on account of judgments obtained by plaintiffs for infringements against Montgomery Ward & Co. and Sears Roebuck & Co., customers of defendant. These statements show the following facts which, for the sake of greater clearness, will be reduced to tabular form.

No dividends have been paid, except one of $7,500 in 1937, which appears to have been a stock dividend, for the capital stock outstanding was increased in that year from $62,500 to $70,000. Defendant’s total assets increased from $130,007.39 on December 31, 1936, to $228,391.37 on December 31, 1943, its liabilities, exclusive of capital stock and surplus, from $52,133.10 to $19,368.15 and its surplus from $15,374.29 to $139,023.22.

In calculating defendant’s profits on its sales of models 73 and 74, the accountant took the total net sales of all goods in each year and divided that figure into the total operating, expenses for selling, shipping, general and administrative purposes, which included the salaries paid to Kaplan and Stark, and thus arrived at the percentage which such overhead operating expenses bore to all defendant’s sales. He then took the total sales of each model in each year and deducted the cost of the models and the overhead operating expenses, calculated upon the total sales at the percentages so determined, and thus arrived at the net profits on each model from 1937 to April 1, 1943. With reference to model 73, the results were as follows:

With reference to model 74, the results were as follows:

The accountant testified that it was impossible to break up the figures into days and defendant raised no objection to the accounting period extending to April 1st, instead of March 23d, the date of expiration of the patent.

Thus the total sales of models 73 and 74 were 5.13% of the total of all sales, while the net profits on models 73 and 74 were 11.29% of all the net profits.

The salaries paid to the officers — Kaplan and Stark — were included in the item of total operating expenses used as the nu *487 merator in determining the percentage of overhead operating expenses to sales applied in arriving at defendant’s net profits on models 73 and 74. Plaintiffs claim that they should not have been so included. If they are omitted, the percentage will be less and the net profits on models 73 and 74 greater. Plaintiffs claim that these salaries were “obviously distribution of profit” and not deductible upon the authority of the following cases: Williams v. Leonard, C. C., N.D.N.Y., 29 Fed.Cas.No.17,726, p. 1372, 9 Blatch. 476; Providence Rubber Co. v. Goodyear, 9 Wall. 788, 19 L.Ed. 566; Seabury & Johnson v. Am Ende, 152 U.S. 561, 14 S.Ct. 683, 38 L.Ed. 553; and Bush & Lane Piano Co. v. Becker Bros., 2 Cir., 234 F. 79.

The Seabury case is of no importance, for it was not shown there that any sum was actually paid to the president as salary (152 U.S. p. 570, 14 S.Ct. 683).

In the Providence Rubber case the court approved the action of the Master in allowing “the usual salaries of the managing officers” and in refusing to allow “the extraordinary salaries which it appeared by the books had been paid, being satisfied they were dividends of profit under another name, and put in that guise for concealment and delusion” (9 Wall. p. 803).

In the Williams case the infringers seem to have been partners and the infringing business their only business. Their “salaries” were disallowed, the court saying (29 Fed.Cas.No.17,726, p. 1373 left column), “What, in good faith, the defendants pay to others, as expenses, may be taken as the cost, to them, of their manufacture. What they take to themselves are gains.”

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Bluebook (online)
70 F. Supp. 484, 73 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 347, 1946 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1788, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/clair-v-kastar-inc-nysd-1946.