H. C. Cook Co. v. Beecher

217 U.S. 497, 30 S. Ct. 601, 54 L. Ed. 855, 1910 U.S. LEXIS 1976

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: May 16, 1910
• Docket: 659
• Status: Published

Opinion

Me. Justice Holmes

delivered the opinion of the court.

This case comes here on the single question of the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, certified from the court below. 172 Fed. Rep. 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 com plaint. . The plaintiff is the owner of a patent for fingernail clippérs. 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 iii a decree for-an injunction, $12,871 damages and $496.35 costs. The defendants voted to continue the salé of the infringing clipper pending the suit, and also voted and caused tó b.e 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 co-trespasser 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 ini erpretation is not the nat-' ■ ural 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 bis 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 it is hot, any more than Stillman v. Combe, 197 U. S. 436; 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 áre 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,