Swofford v. B & W, Inc.

34 F.R.D. 15, 7 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 806, 139 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 92, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7305
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Texas
DecidedOctober 9, 1963
DocketCiv. A. No. 13564
StatusPublished
Cited by34 cases

This text of 34 F.R.D. 15 (Swofford v. B & W, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Swofford v. B & W, Inc., 34 F.R.D. 15, 7 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 806, 139 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 92, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7305 (S.D. Tex. 1963).

Opinion

NOEL, District Judge.

Pathfinder Oil Tool Co. originated this civil action for patent infringement by filing its original complaint in March - 1961. As the assignee of United States Letters Patent No. 2,826,253, the patent allegedly infringed, Pathfinder claimed the benefit of the remedy for patent infringement given patentees by ’ 35 U.S.C.A. § 281. The original complaint requested a preliminary and final injunction against infringement of the patent by defendant, B & W, Inc.; an accounting for profits, damages, and reasonable attorneys’ fees; assessment of treble damages; and assessment of costs against defendant. B & W, Inc. in its answer denied the validity of the patent allegedly infringed, and counterclaimed for a declaratory judgment that the patent was invalid and had not been infringed by the defendant. In December 1961, with the permission of the Court, Marvin K. Swofford and Marion F. Wright, ‘ patentees of the allegedly infringed'patent, were added as plaintiffs, and plaintiffs’ first amended complaint, adding Swofford and Wright, was filed. The allegations therein are in substantial conformity with those of the original complaint, and the same remedies-are requested.

,. - Immediately after the filing of the first amended complaint, plaintiffs made demand for a jury trial. Having answered the amended complaint with a response substantially similar to that which had been made to the original, defendant moves the Court to strike plaintiffs’ jury demand because it was untimely and because, as contends the defendant, the issues involvéd in an action for an injunction and an accounting are equitable and not properly triable before a jury. In reply to defendant’s motion, plaintiffs urge that their request was timely, having immediately followed the filing of an amended complaint, and that under the most recent authority the issues in a patent infringement case such as this are proper for jury trial.

Plaintiffs and defendant having submitted briefs and one oral hearing having beeii’ held, defendant’s motion to strike plaintiffs’ jury demand is now before the Court for decision.

In connection with defendant’s contention that plaintiffs waived whatever rights to jury trial they might otherwise have had by failing to make timely demand, an analysis must be made of the applicable Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 38(d) provides for automatic waiver of trial by jury upon the failure of the claiming party to make demand in accordance with Rule 38(b). Under Rule’38(b) “Any party may demand a trial by jury of any issue triable of right by a jury by serving upon the other parties a demand therefor in writing * * * not later than 10 days after the service of the last pleading directed to such issue.”

Here it is undisputed that plaintiffs’ demand for jury trial was made within 10 days of the filing of the amended complaint. But the issue is whether the amended complaint, filed more than eight months after the original complaint, and adding only two new plaintiffs without changing the nature of the cause of action originally pleaded, can be considered the “last pleading” [17]*17within the context of Rule 38(b). It' might appear from the naked language of the Rule that a party might renew a previously waived right to jury trial by obtaining leave to file an amended complaint, regardless of the substance of the amendment. However, while it is true that where new jury issues are created by amendment a party may properly demand a jury, it has been held that an amendment which neither changes the nature of the case nor introduces new issues does not renew the right. See, e. g., Reeves v. Pennsylvania R., 9 F.R.D. 487 (D.Del.1949).

In this case it is clear that the amended complaint, substantially a reproduction of the original, fails to alter the nature of the ease. But the amended complaint does add two new plaintiffs, and unless the failure of Pathfinder, the original plaintiff, to demand jury trial following the filing of the original complaint also operates as a-waiver by subsequently-added plaintiffs, the demand of the new plaintiffs should be considered timely.

Since it is only reasonable that, in the absence of bad faith, no party should be estopped by another’s waiver, the Court feels that the demands of plaintiffs Swofford and Wright should be considered timely. Furthermore, the Court recognizes that it may in its discretion grant a jury on appropriate issues notwithstanding waiver. Rule 39 (b), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Thus, mindful of the lofty position occupied by the jury in our history and jurisprudence, and feeling strongly that trial before a jury is to be denied only with great caution, the Court is here disposed to disregard possibilities of waiver on the part of any of the plaintiffs. Because plaintiffs’ jury demand will therefore be treated as timely, a careful analysis must be made to determine which, if any, of the issues framed by the pleadings are properly triable by jury.

At the time of the adoption of the Seventh Amendment to' the United States Constitution, its mandate to federal courts that '“[i]n Suits at Common? law * * * the right of trial-by-jury shall be preserved” presented far, fewer problems than today. At that time .the-separate jurisdictions of common law and equity flourished. Each jurisdiction was equipped with its traditional fact-finding tool, the jury at law and the chancellor at equity. Since the jurisdictions of law and equity were mutually exclusive, legal actions were tried at common law and equitable actions were tried in equity where special remedies were available. Because a given '.lawsuit would be tried either at common law or at equity, depending upon its nature, the-, problem of overlapping of fact-finding methods did not exist. '

But with the abolishment of the procedural .distinction between law and equity in the federal courts by the adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938 came the sometimes difficult task of determining the proper fact-finding method in a given case. With the union of law and equity, all issues, whether legal or equitable, are required to be presented in one lawsuit, but a distinction still remains between jury and non-jury issues. Rule 38(a) of the Federal Rules provides that “[t]he right of trial by jury as declared by the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution * * * shall be preserved to the parties inviolate.” Thus, in the federal courts, those issues which were traditionally legal, which would have been triable by jury at common law, must still be tried by jury where the proper party does not waive the right. Judge Clark explained in Beaunit Mills, Inc. v. Eday Fabric Sales Corp., 124 F.2d 563, 565-66 (2d Cir. 1942) that “there are no longer equity cases and law cases, and it is the issues, not the form of case, which now determine the method of trial.”

The jurisdiction of the equity courts of old was dependent on the absence of an adequate remedy at law. If, under [18]*18the circumstances, legal damages were sufficient to remedy the injury, the equity courts would refuse to grant equitable relief, and the plaintiff would have to be content with trial of his case at law, where facts could be found by jury.

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Bluebook (online)
34 F.R.D. 15, 7 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 806, 139 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 92, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7305, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/swofford-v-b-w-inc-txsd-1963.