Home/Fifth Circuit/Wakefield Sheet Piling Co. v. City of New Orleans

Wakefield Sheet Piling Co. v. City of New Orleans

177 F. 214, 101 C.C.A. 384, 1910 U.S. App. LEXIS 4372
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedMarch 1, 1910
DocketNo. 1,918
StatusPublished

This text of 177 F. 214 (Wakefield Sheet Piling Co. v. City of New Orleans) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wakefield Sheet Piling Co. v. City of New Orleans, 177 F. 214, 101 C.C.A. 384, 1910 U.S. App. LEXIS 4372 (5th Cir. 1910).

Opinion

PARDEE, Circuit Judge.

This is a suit in equity for the infringement of letters patent No. 370,108, granted to James A. Wakefield, September 20, 1887, for improved sheet piling, to wit:

“A sheet piling -composed of three thicknesses of plank secured together by bolts or rivets, so that the middle plank shall project out at one edge of a section at a distance corresponding to the depth of the groove whereby, when several sections are driven down, the edges of the exterior plank and the in-[215]*215nor plank will respectively come ■ together and form a wall or sheet piling of three thicknesses of plank securely held together and the joints centrally broken, as and for the purposes specified.”

The application for patent was filed July 14, 188‘J', and in connection with drawing describes the invention as follows:

"Figure 1 is an end elevation of the framework of a dam, with an edge view of my improved shed: piling in position to be driven down into the bed of the water. Figure 2 is a perspective representation of four sections of my [216]*216improved piling in position relatively as they are when driven, except the right-hand section, which is in position to be driven. Fig. 3 is a side elevation of one section of piling; Fig. 4, a top or plan view of Fig. 3. The purpose of this invention is to provide a sheet piling which will prevent water from getting through it or under it. It has been the custom to construct sheet piling of several thicknesses of plank, with the intention of setting them so closely together as to prevent water from getting under or through such piling and breaking down the dam or earth shore; but thus to drive sheet piling has been found to be an engineering impossibility, as experienced by government officers and others equally skilled. The theory that one row of planks can be driven to lie so closely to a previously driven row of plank as to exclude water remains a theory unsupported by practice. Attempts have been made to drive a sheet piling of tongued and grooved solid stuff; but this proved to be a failure, in that the tongues and grooves could not be available without cutting away to form them three-sevenths of the lumber.”
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Bluebook (online)
177 F. 214, 101 C.C.A. 384, 1910 U.S. App. LEXIS 4372, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wakefield-sheet-piling-co-v-city-of-new-orleans-ca5-1910.