Daniel Boone Realty Co. v. Clemens

88 Pa. D. & C. 403, 1953 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 23
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Berks County
DecidedDecember 10, 1953
Docketno. 2508
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 88 Pa. D. & C. 403 (Daniel Boone Realty Co. v. Clemens) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Berks County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Daniel Boone Realty Co. v. Clemens, 88 Pa. D. & C. 403, 1953 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 23 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1953).

Opinion

Hess, J.,

— Daniel Boone Realty Co., plaintiff, is the owner of the hotel premises located at 1016-1024 Penn Street, Reading, Pa. Leighton Hotel Operating Co., Inc., plaintiff, operates the hotel as the Daniel Boone Hotel under and by virtue of a lease with the aforesaid owner. John C. Clemmens, defendant, is a member of the Berks County Bar, and registered the name, “Daniel Boone Hotel”, under the Fictitious Names Act of the State of Pennsylvania. Thereafter defendant, by his attorney, caused to be sent to plaintiff operating the hotel a letter notifying the plaintiff to desist from the use of the name “Daniel Boone Hotel”. Plaintiffs thereupon filed a complaint in equity asking for a preliminary injunction and other relief against defendant.

After the taking of some testimony at the hearing on the question of a preliminary injunction, defendant’s counsel agreed that his client would not go into business and use the name, “Daniel Boone Hotel”, pending final outcome of the proceeding. In due course the case was listed for trial and the questions raised argued before the chancellor.

Statement of Questions Involved

1. Is the trade name, “Daniel Boone Hotel”, appurtenant to premises 1016-1024 Penn Street, Reading, Pa., and does the name pass to each owner of the premises as an incident to the conveyance of the fee?

[405]*4052. Did the lessees, or defendant by the consent of the lessees, under the lease dated July 17,1942, obtain a right to the use of the name, “Daniel Boone Hotel”, beyond the 10-year term of that lease?

3. Does the registration of a name under the Fictitious Names Act determine the right to the use of that name?

4. Are plaintiffs entitled to injunctive relief?

Findings of Fact

1. Plaintiff Daniel Boone Realty Company is a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, with its principal place of business at 246 North Clarion Street, Philadelphia, Pa.

2. Plaintiff Leighton Hotel Operating Co., Inc., is a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, with its principal place of business at 1016-1024 Penn Street, Reading, Berks County, Pa.

3. Defendant John C. Clemmens is an individual residing at 1522 Centre Avenue, Reading, Berks County, Pa.

4. Plaintiff Daniel Boone Realty Company is the present owner of premises situate and known as 1016-1024 Penn Street, Reading Berks County, Pa., by virtue of a deed dated on or about October 20, 1947, from the Berks County Trust Company, and recorded in the Office of the Recorder of Deeds for Berks County, Pa., in deed book 997, at page 151.

5. Plaintiff Leighton Hotel Operating Company, Inc., is the lessee of premises 1016-1024 Penn Street, Reading, Berks County, Pa., by virtue of a written assignment dated on or about June 3, 1952, of a lease entered into between Daniel Boone Realty Company as lessor and Samuel J. Leighton and Solomon Lifschutz as lessees, dated on or about June 3,1952, for a term of 10 years from September 1, 1952.

[406]*4066. Premises 1016-1024 Penn Street consist of a certain tract of land and hotel building, which hotel building was erected approximately 30 years ago.

7. The hotel building was constructed in 1924 or early 1925 and has been known as, and operated continuously as, the “Daniel Boone Hotel” during the entire period from its erection to the present by the various owners and lessees thereof.

8. The hotel building has 96 rooms, a dining room, a kitchen in the basement, a ballroom equipped with dressing room and lavatory, and a roof sign reading, “Daniel Boone Hotel.”

9. The premises 1016-1024 Penn Street, Reading, Pa., are designed to be used permanently as a hotel.

10. No hotel and restaurant business has been operated under the name “Daniel Boone Hotel” in and about the City of Reading, Berks County, Pa., from 1926 through the present date other than the hotel and restaurant business conducted under the name “Daniel Boone Hotel” at premises 1016-1024 Penn Street, Reading, Pa., from 1926 through the present date.

11. Defendant introduced no evidence indicating that a hotel and restaurant business under the name “Daniel Boone Hotel” has ever been conducted at any place in the United States or elsewhere in North America, other than that conducted at 1016-1024 Penn Street, Reading, Pa.

12. The hotel business conducted at 1016-1024 Penn Street under the name, “Daniel Boone Hotel”, has been extensively advertised over a period beginning at least several years prior to 1931 and continuing to the present through the media of highway signs placed in various places along the Allentown, Lancaster, Harrisburg, Pottsville and Philadelphia pikes leading into Reading.

[407]*40713. There was no substantial increase in the advertisement of the name “Daniel Boone Hotel” through the highway sign media after the Segal and Gottfried interests became the lessees in 1942.

14. The name “Daniel Boone Hotel” has been listed each year since at least 1934 under Reading, Pa., in the “Hotel Red Book”, published annually by the American Hotel Association Directory Corporation, 221 West 57th Street, New York 19, N. Y. This book is a compilation of practically every hotel in the United States, Canada, British Columbia, Mexico, Central America, and South America, and is distributed to all hotels. The listings in the “Hotel Red Book” are by country, State, and city and town.

15. The name, “Daniel Boone Hotel”, has been listed at the same location variously described as 1022 Penn Street, Penn Street at Tenth, or Penn Street near Tenth, Reading, Pa., in “Boyd’s City Directory” (for Reading, Pa.) since 1926.

16. The name, “Daniel Boone Hotel”, has been listed in the telephoné directory for the City of Reading at the location of 1018 or 1020 Penn Street continuously from at least 1928 till the present.

17. The reputation and good will in the name, “Daniel Boone Hotel”, is derived exclusively from the continuous conduct of a reputable hotel and restaurant, with the concomitant advertising and listing thereof, under that name at premises 1016-1024 Penn Street, Reading, Pa., for approximately the past 30 years.

18. During approximately the last 30 years considerable sums of money have been expended by the various owners and operators thereof in establishing and maintaining the reputation and good will of the hotel and restaurant business under the name, “Daniel Boone Hotel”, at 1016-1024 Penn Street, Reading, Pa.

19. Patrons of the Daniel Boone Hotel come from diversified sections of the United States, including [408]*408Ohio, California, New Jersey, New York, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

20. Persons throughout Reading, Berks County, Pa., associate the name, “Daniel Boone Hotel”, with the premises located at 1016-1024 Penn Street, Reading, Pa.

21. The name “Daniel Boone” is that of the famous historical character whose early days were spent in Berks County, Pa., and the hotel business conducted under that name at 1016-1024 Penn Street, Reading Pa., is done under the name of the historical character and not under the name of any individual person connected with the hotel business at that location.

22.

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88 Pa. D. & C. 403, 1953 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 23, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/daniel-boone-realty-co-v-clemens-pactcomplberks-1953.