Pratt v. United States

87 Ct. Cl. 586, 1938 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 146, 1938 WL 4000
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedNovember 14, 1938
DocketNo. 43858
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 87 Ct. Cl. 586 (Pratt v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pratt v. United States, 87 Ct. Cl. 586, 1938 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 146, 1938 WL 4000 (cc 1938).

Opinion

Booth, Chief Justice,

delivered the opinion of the Court:

This is a patent case in which plaintiff under Rule 38 (b) of procedure adopted by this Court December 14, 1937, has filed separate motions for a bill of particulars and for interrogatories. The rule reads as follows:

In any patent case, within 60 days from the filing of the general traverse (unless the time be otherwise extended by the Court) either party may file motions for interrogatories or bills of particular, or both, in order to prevent surprise and to suitably frame the issues to be met.

This rule was enacted by the Court under the authority given it by sec. 157 of the Judicial Code (U. S. Code, Title 28, sec. 263) to establish suitable rules of procedure.

A patent case is nearly always technical in character and requires a voluminous and extensive record and proceedings, and if any compensation is found to exist it is interest-bearing in character. The clear intent and purpose of Rule 38 (b) is therefore to expedite such proceedings, bring the procedure more into conformity with patent litigation in the district courts, and to save both time and expense on behalf of both the plaintiff and defendant.

Defendant has filed motions to strike both of the motions of plaintiff (a motion for a bill of particulars and a motion for interrogatories) and has also filed objections, and all these matters were presented to the Court on oral argument October 3,1938.

The procedural questions raised and the fundamental character of some of them which have been presented necessitate a comprehensive discussion in order to define the principles upon which expediting motions of this character will be allowed by this Court.

BILLS OK PARTICULARS

A bill of particular is an amplification or a more particularized outline of a pleading. When a declaration or a pleading is too general in its terms to permit the opposing party to proceed properly and expeditiously with its case, it may call for a more detailed statement and when such statement is furnished the same is to be construed as though it had been originally incorporated in the pleading.

[590]*590It has, however, been clearly established that it is not the office of a bill of particulars to supply allegations essential to make out a cause of action or a defense, nor can a party be required to set out in such a bill opinions, arguments, or evidence. See Universal Oil Products Co. v. Skelly Oil Co., 12 Fed. (2d) 271.

A bill of particulars relates to and must be limited solely to pleadings and not to evidential facts which are matters of either stipulation or proof.

The defendant has moved to strike plaintiff’s motion for bill of particulars on the fundamental ground that this Court’s Rule 38 (b) is “unauthorized and void” in that the allowance of a motion for a bill of particulars will circumvent the statutory conditions declared by Congress in the act which gives this Court patent jurisdiction. This argument is based on the theory that in the patent jurisdictional act of 1910 (36 Stat. 851) as amended by the act of July 1, 1918, U. S. Code, Title 35, Section 68; 40 Stat. 705, under which the petition in the present case is filed, Congress prescribed the forms of pleadings and the rules of practice to be observed in such suits when it specifically provided therein—

That in any such suit the United States may avail itself of any and all defenses, general or special, that might be pleaded by a defendant in an action for in-fringment, as set forth in Title LX of the Revised Statutes, or otherwise,

of which Title Section 4920 (35 U. S. C. A. 69) specifically states:

the defendant may plead the general issue, and having given notice in writing to the plaintiff or his attorney, thirty days before, may prove on trial * * *

the defenses therein set out.

The defendant urges that under such procedure the Government is only required to plead the general issue. A reading of the patent jurisdictional act, however, fails to disclose where Congress has specifically defined the form of pleadings or practice to be used. Congress merely specifies in the act of 1910 the various forms of defenses which may be availed of by the defendant by reference to section 4920, and in addition does not specifically limit such defenses [591]*591thereto as they are further qualified by the words “or otherwise.”

It is also noted that section 4920 specifies two separate actions, i. e., an action at law in which the general issue for pleading is to be subsequently followed by the 30-day notice, and an action in equity in which a defendant must set up its defenses upon a “like notice in the answer of the defendant.”

The Government’s contention would require a slavish adherence to the pleading of the general issue and would require plaintiff to prepare its prima facie case without any aid or enlightenment as to what issues would have to be met, with the exception of the 30-day notice provided.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the Court of Claims in deciding the rights of claimants is not bound by any special rules of pleadings.

As was stated by this Court in the Morse Arms Manufacturing Company case, 16 C. Cls. 296, 301:

Proceedings are conducted here with a view to effecting substantial justice irrespective of technical forms.

And, again, in Brown v. The District of Columbia, 17 C. Cls. 303, 310:

The court * * * seeks to administer justice between the contending parties by forms the most simple and convenient, and to make all such interlocutory orders as will lead to the doing complete justice to all concerned, without prolonging litigation or subjecting either side of a controversy to unnecessary inconvenience and expense.

See also American Sanitary Rag Co., 84 C. Cls. 417, 426, and the Supreme Court opinions quoted therein.

Even though a general issue be pleaded and a general traverse be filed in a patent case, if a particular set of circumstances arises in a case which requires amplification of the pleadings by either party in order to expedite the proceedings, this Court has a sufficient flexibility of procedure ■ to grant a motion for a bill of particulars for this purpose.

Plaintiff’s counsel argues that the new rules of civil procedure for the district courts of the United States, which became effective September 16,1938, through an act of Congress, have a bearing on the present situation.

[592]*592These new rules, which abolish all differences of procedure as between suits of law and suits in equity, find their bases on the following act of June 19, 1934, 48 Stat. 1064:

Be it enacted * * * That the Supreme Court of the United States shall have the power to prescribe, by general rules, for the district courts of the United States and for the courts of the District of Columbia, the forms of process, writs, pleadings, and motions, and the practice and procedure in civil actions at law. Said rules shall neither abridge, enlarge, nor modify the substantive rights of any litigant. They shall take effect six months after their promulgation,

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Related

Martin v. United States
88 Ct. Cl. 249 (Court of Claims, 1939)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
87 Ct. Cl. 586, 1938 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 146, 1938 WL 4000, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pratt-v-united-states-cc-1938.