John B. Stetson Co. v. Stephen L. Stetson Co.

14 F. Supp. 74, 1936 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2177
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedMarch 18, 1936
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 14 F. Supp. 74 (John B. Stetson Co. v. Stephen L. Stetson Co.) 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
John B. Stetson Co. v. Stephen L. Stetson Co., 14 F. Supp. 74, 1936 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2177 (S.D.N.Y. 1936).

Opinion

WOOLSEY, District Judge.

My decision in this cause is in favor of the plaintiff, which will have an interlocu *75 tory decree against both defendants carrying costs and giving the relief hereinafter indicated in detail.

I. This cause has two branches: First, a claim of infringement of trade-mark by the defendant Stephen L. Stetson Company, Ltd., to which it is alleged that Hutt & Wasserman, Inc., contributed; and, second, a claim of unfair competition with the plaintiff on the part of both said defendants.

II. The subject-matter jurisdiction of this court herein is based, in so far as questions of trade-mark are concerned, on the Trade-Mark Act, § 17, as amended, title 15 United States Code, § 97 (15 U.S. C.A. § 97), and, in so far as questions of unfair competition are concerned, on the fact that the cause is brought by a corporation of the state of Pennsylvania against two corporations of the state of New York and involves an amount admittedly in excess of the statutory requirement.

III. The plaintiff is the maker of hats which have long been sold under the name “Stetson” hats. It claims as its trademark the word “Stetson” registered on May 1, 1906, under section 5 of the Act of February 20, 1905, as amended, title 15 United States Code, § 85 (15 U.S.C.A. § 85), as Trade-mark No. 51,990. It also claims that the word “Stetson” as a .trade-name has acquired a secondary meaning as designating hats made by the plaintiff.

Defendants rely principally, by way of defense, on the claim that it is fairly using as its corporate title, and, as a mark in its hats and caps and in its advertising, the name of Stephen L. Stetson, its president, active executive officer, and principal stockholder, who is a grandnephew of the founder of the plaintiff’s business, and that a corporation principally owned and controlled by him has a right to use his name as it has been used.

The plaintiff contends that using the name Stephen L. Stetson, which is not a registered trade-mark, infringes the plaintiff’s trade-mark “Stetson” which is affixed to the plaintiff’s hats, and that by participation in the manufacture of those hats the defendant Hutt & Wasserman, Inc., are contributory infringers of the plaintiff’s said trade-mark.

Stephen L. Stetson contends that the words “Stephen L. Stetson” are not a simulation of the word “Stetson” used simpliciter and should not cause confusion, and that as it is his own name he should be entitled to use it.

The other defendant, Hutt & Wasserman, Inc., contends that it cannot properly be held guilty of contributory infringement of this trade-mark or of unfair competition because, as it claims, all it does is to sell certain hat bodies to the defendant Stephen L. Stetson Company, Ltd., and lease to it certain facilities for the finishing thereof.

IV. The plaintiff’s bill of complaint, filed January 10, 1934, asks for the injunctive relief against the defendants customary in a cause of this kind, and prays specially for (1) an injunction preventing the defendant Stephen L. Stetson Company, Ltd., from using the name “Stetson” in any form, on hats and caps, their linings or sweatbands, or on boxes containing them, (2) from acts of unfair competition by advertising or otherwise in the sale of hats and caps, and (3) a reference to ascertain the defendants’ profits and the plaintiff’s damages caused by the defendants’ allegedly wrongful acts.

V. The facts in this cause, as to which there is not very much dispute, are as follows :

A. 1. The plaintiff John B. Stetson Company, which was incorporated in 1922, succeeded another corporation of the same name which had been formed on May 4, 1891. Both were corporations of Pennsylvania.

All the business, good will, trade-marks, and other property of the first John B. Stetson Company were transferred to the plaintiff at or about the time of its organization.

The corporation formed in 1891 under the name of John B. Stetson Company duly succeeded to the business commenced in Philadelphia about 1865 by John B. Stetson individually and carried on there from 1869 to 1874 as a partnership with John B. Stetson and Charles W. Stetson, one of his brothers, as partners.

The plaintiff John B. Stetson Company and its said predecessors in business have for seventy years been engaged at Philadelphia in the business of manufacturing and selling high-grade hats and other headgear and the products of the successive Stetson businesses have been and now are distributed in all parts of the United States and throughout a large part of the world.

*76 John B. Stetson was the president of the plaintiff’s predecessor corporation from the time of its organization in 1891 until his death in 1906.

2. On May 1, 1906, under the TradeMark Act of 1905, § 5, now title 15 United States Code, § 85 (15 U.S.C.A. § 85), the name ‘-‘Stetson” was duly registered in the United States Patent Office under No. 51,-990, by the plaintiff’s predecessor corporation as a trade-mark for hats and caps. This registration was duly renewed on April 30, 1926, for a further period of twenty years from May 1, 1926.

3. The plaintiff’s predecessors have used the said trade-mark “Stetson” in their businesses for about seventy years, and it was their practice to affix the said trademark to their hats by printing or stamping it — sometimes with additions immaterial here — upon the lining, labels, and hat leathers which were attached to the inside of the hats and caps made by them, and also to have it prominently appear on boxes and other receptacles in which the hats were packed for shipment to retailers, and upon the shipping cases in which such boxes and receptacles were shipped.

Since the registration of the said trademark “Stetson” on May 1, 1906, the plaintiff and its predecessor corporation have not abandoned it, but are now using it— sometimes with additions immaterial here —on the hats and caps made by them, and since then it has been the practice of the plaintiff and its predecessors to affix the said trade-mark- — sometimes with additions immaterial here — to its products by printing or stamping it upon the hat linings and sweatband leathers which are attached to the inside of hats and other headgear of their manufacture, and also to have it appear prominently on boxes or other receptacles in which their hats are packed.

4. The plaintiff and its predecessors have, since at least January 1, 1866, been continuously engaged in the sale and distribution of high-grade headgear in connection with which they have used the name “Stetson” and have since the incorporation of the first John B. Stetson Company in 1891 spent approximately $5,600,-000 in advertising. Of this amount about $4,400,000 has been spent during the last fifteen years in world-wide advertising-through newspapers, magazines, radio, on hoardings, and by other advertising media —of hats manufactured' and sold by them as “Stetson Hats.”

5. Due to the excellence of its product and this extensive advertising the plaintiff and its predecessor corporation have sold in the United States and foreign countries, in the period between the incorporation of the first John B. Stetson Company in 1891 and October 31, 1935, 7,422,522 dozen hats of their manufacture having an invoice value in excess of $340,000,000.

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Bluebook (online)
14 F. Supp. 74, 1936 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2177, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/john-b-stetson-co-v-stephen-l-stetson-co-nysd-1936.