Walter Baker & Co. v. Baker

77 F. 181, 1896 U.S. App. LEXIS 2946
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Western Virginia
DecidedSeptember 3, 1896
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 77 F. 181 (Walter Baker & Co. v. Baker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Western Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Walter Baker & Co. v. Baker, 77 F. 181, 1896 U.S. App. LEXIS 2946 (circtwdva 1896).

Opinion

PAUL, District Judge

(after stating the facts). The first question presented by the foregoing statement of facts for the determination of the court is as to the power of a court of equity to enjoin a man from using his own name in connection with any business in which he wishes to engage. Very elaborate arguments have been made by counsel on this question, and numerous decisions of the state and federal courts cited. The result of these decisions is that a man has a right to use his own name in connection with any business he honestly desires to carry on. The doctrine is equally well settled that equity will direct how a man shall use his name in Ms purpose to denote his own individuality. He will not be allowed to so use his own name as to work an injury to another having the same name, nor to perpetrate a fraud upon the public. In Meyers v. Medicine Co., 7 C. C. A. 558, 58 Fed. 884, the court says:

“While the light of no one can he denied to use his name in connection with his business, or in connection with articles of his own production, so as to show the business or product to be his, yet lie should not be allowed to designate his article by his own name in such a way as to cause it to he mistaken for the manufacture or goods of another already in the market under the same or a similar name. Whether it be his name, or some other possession, every one, by the familiar maxim, must so use his own as not to injure the possession or right of another. The question is therefore resolved info one of fact, upon the evidence spread upon the record, — whether the means here employed expose the unwary to mistake one man’s goods for the goods of another?”

In Landreth v. Landreth, 22 Fed. 41, the doctrine is thus stated:

“Of course, a party cannot he debarred from the right to use his own name in advertising' his goods and putting them on the market, but where other persons bearing the same surname have previously used the name in connection with their goods in such manner and for such a length of time as to make it a guaranty that the goods hearing the name emanated from them, they will he protected against the use of that name, even by a person bearing the same name, in such form as to constitute a false representation of the origin of the goods.”

[184]*184In that case Judge Dyer said:

. “Now, as I have said, the defendant’s label is, as it seems to me, a palpable imitation of the complainant’s. In the color of the ink used, in the arrangement of the words, and in the general style of the labels, he has, so to speak, dressed his goods in the garb previously adopted by the complainants. Whether intended or not, this necessarily operates a fraud upon them, and upon the public.”

In a recent case (Pillsbury v. Flour Mills) decided by the circuit court’of appeals, Seventh circuit (12 C. C. A. 432, 64 Fed. 841), the court said:

“The general principles by which courts are guided in such cases are well and correctly stated in Cement Co. v. Le Page, 147 Mass. 206, 17 N. E. 304, as follows: ‘A person cannot make a trade-mark of his own name, and thus debar another having the same name from using it in his business, if he does so honestly, and without miy intention to appropriate wrongfully the good will of a business already established by others of the name. Every one has the absolute right to use his own name honestly in his own business for the purpose of advertising it, even though he may thereby incidentally interfere with and injure the business of another having the name. In such ease the inconvenience or loss to which those having a common right to it are subjected is damnum absque injuria. But, although he may thus use his name, he cannot resort to any artifice or do any act calculated to mislead the public as to the identity of the business firm or establishment, or of the articles produced by them, and thus produce injury to the other beyond that which results frogi the similarityof names.’ ”

The respondent, in his answer and in his testimony, avers that he had no intention of infringing on the rights of the complainant. He has taken the testimony of a number of’ witnesses to prove his high character as a citizen and business man. In the argument great stress is laid upon this testimony by respondent’s counsel, as negativing the idea of a fraudulent purpose on the part of the respondent in dressing up his goods in imitation of the complainant’s. The court cannot give to this evidence the weight to which counsel insist it is entitled. It must in this case, as in every case where intent is the subject of investigation, deduce the intent from the acts of the respondent. These constitute the proof as to the purpose of the respondent, and by them the court must be guided. The evidence shows that the respondent, prior to 1894, had never engaged in the business of a dealer in chocolate, and had no experience in the manufacture of the same; that, in the months of May and June of that year, he had” several conferences with one J. Elwood Sanders, then in the employ of Rockwood & Co., manufacturers and sellers of chocolate. The respondent engaged the services of Sanders, and commenced the sale of chocolate. The respondent states that a partnership was at that time contemplated between himself and Sanders, and the firm name of W. H. Baker & Co. adopted. But that partnership was not formed, nor has the respondent had a partner at any time in the chocolate business. With regard to his conferences with Sanders, the respondent is asked: “Did you know that Walter Baker & Co. was an old, established house in the business for a great many years?” He says: “I did.” “It did not strike you, then, when Walter Baker’s goods were ordered by you, and of you, in your grocery business, that they were spoken of simply.as ‘Baker’s goods’; that is, prior to the time you went into the chocolate businéss?” ■ Answer: “I think so.” “Did Sanders [185]*185suggest to you, in any of your conversations, that the name ‘Baker’ would he an advantage to you in the chocolate business, on account of the reputation of Walter Baker & Co.?” Answer: “He may have suggested something of that kind, hut I did not pay any attention to it, because of the fact that I did not intend to sell my chocolate on the reputation of any one else, but by price and quality to attract the trade to me.” It is clearly apparent from the testimony of 1he respondent:, and from other evidence in the cause, that, in the arrangement between the respondent and Sanders, respondent’s name of “Baker” was to play a prominent part in the sale of his chocolate* goods. When this testimony is taken in connection with the similarity in the shape and size between the cakes of chocolate manufactured for the respondent by 1’. Griffing Company and the chocolate* cakes of the complainant, and the stamps and lines thereon; the* identity in color of the blue wrappers, and the similarity of the yellow labels on each; the identity in shape and size of the tin cans used by each for putting up cocoa, and the similarity of the* stamps and inscriptions thereon; the simulation of the inscriptions on the complainant’s “German Sweet Chocolate” and its “Vanilla Chocolate,” — it is impossible to escape the conclusion that it was the purpose of the respondent to put upon the market his goods in such condition and appearance that the same might be readily accepted as the goods of the complainant. That such was the result the evidence abundantly shows.

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Bluebook (online)
77 F. 181, 1896 U.S. App. LEXIS 2946, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/walter-baker-co-v-baker-circtwdva-1896.