Home/Third Circuit/Worthington Mower Co. v. Gustin

Worthington Mower Co. v. Gustin

80 F.2d 594
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedSeptember 28, 1935
DocketNos. 5483, 5578
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 80 F.2d 594 (Worthington Mower Co. v. Gustin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Worthington Mower Co. v. Gustin, 80 F.2d 594 (3d Cir. 1935).

Opinion

BUFFINGTON, Circuit Judge.

In the court below, Worthington Mower Company, owner of patent No. 1,398,-481 (hereinafter referred to as 481), granted November 29, 1921, to Charles C. Worthington for a gang lawn mower, and of patent No. 1,712,722 (hereafter referred to as 722), granted May 14, 1929, to same, brought suit against Theron L. Gustin, doing business as the Philadelphia Toro Company, charging infringement thereof. On final hearing that court entered decrees dismissing plaintiff’s bill for want of equity; whereupon these appeals were taken.

The subject-matter of these patents is what is called a “gang” lawn mower, by [595]*595which is meant a number of mowing units, similar to the familiar hand lawn mower hut larger, coupled together in gang formation so as to -cut a swath somewhat shorter than the aggregate of its individual units, but so related that their action as individual units and as correlated groups will cut the grass under constantly-varying surface conditions.

At first view it would seem the proposition was simply one of hitching a number of individual cutting units abreast and then connecting them to a motive power, but a study of the subject shows that the construction of such a successful machine was a much more intricate and difficult problem. In the first place, the cutting units had to he so connected to the power frame as to having a rising and falling movement, that is, one of the cutters was required to be higher up and the other lower down, as the ground required, and this without affecting the base tractive engagement of the ground wheels of any one of the wheels of any unit, which ground wheels were the actuating power of the knives. At the same time a tilting movement was required, which is the lateral, rocking motion each cutting unit has when one of its ground wheels is in a depression or rides over a bump or when both meet a side slope. This tilting must be done without affecting the unit’s individual mowing action or without interfering with the free action of any other unit operating with reference to the unevenness of the ground traversed. If this were not done, a revolving cutter, which is intended to be driven by both ground wheels, might be driven by only one of them and that wheel might slip or skid by reason of being overloaded, and so mar the turf. In addition to this, each individual cutting unit must be able to effect a pitching movement, that is, one which would allow the rear part of the mower unit to cut on the uphill and downhill sides of a ground hump. All of these elements of adjustability in mechanism in and of themselves were probably known, but besides these there was an additional factor the necessity for which and the construction of which were not embodied in any machine, namely, a trailing movement, by which each of the units could swing horizontally right or left with reference to the frame and to the other individual units, a movement which occurs when the machine changes from a straight course.

About 1898, Worthington, the patentee, who was an engineer and machinery manufacturer of large experience, made a golf course of his own and his attention was drawn to the problem of economically and properly mowitig irregular surfaces. At that time the swath cut was from 38 to 44 inches. He testified that mowing apparatus in use was heavy, slow, and inefficient, and was mostly drawn by horses. Some twelve years later he built a larger golf course and found the same conditions to exist. On going abroad, he found that in spite of the number of large lawns and golf links, no progress had been made in Great Britain, where they still continued to use ordinary lawn mowers. As the result of his study, he developed in his patent No. 1,210,879, not here in suit, a three-unit machine, in which the superstructure was supported by the motor units. Later on he developed a five unit, or five individual cutters, in his patent 481. Subsequently he devised an improvement on this last-mentioned patent and developed a seven-unit machine, or patent 722. What he sought to do was to increase the width of the swath, which was necessary if the time and expense of cutting were to be reduced. He testified that he first experimented with light hand-machines and made a machine having seven units, but he became convinced that the machine units were too light for the surface. In his experimenting, the proof is that he first used the frame of a hay tedder, which is a single bar with a wheel at each end, and to that bar he strung these units in two rows, but found they were apt to interfere with one another in making their rounds, so he changed that so as to have a front row where the respective units were rigidly held in alignment at right angles in the line of travel of the machine. The other row he put in as trailers, and this proved quite successful. He originally had a fifth wheel between the two rows, but later on found that he could use a sulky construction which would do away with the fifth wheel arrangement and make the structure much simpler. The three-wheel machine he developed was horse drawn and was about the limit of a horse’s power. When the tractor came in, the proof is that he could use a gang mower with a wider swath; but these tractor machines only had one cutter knife that was about 40 inches long, and that was the limit of their swath. The tractor knife was pushed [596]*596ahead of the tractor. It was found, however, that the 40-inch machine was too long to adjust itself to the undulations of the ground and would shave the higher spots. These machines, the proof is, have virtually gone out of use. The gradual evolution of the art is seen in the .fact that the width of the swath in the three-unit machine device was 7 feet 6 inches; in the five-unit machine it was 31 feet; and in the seven-unit there was a swath of 17 feet. By the use of these devices and the tractor as a motive power, they can now be driven to a speed of 15 to 16 miles an hour. The proof of the inventor is: “I think mine was the first commercial gang lawn mower introduced in this country. I did not know of any prior to that. I was very fully informed of the equipment used on golf courses since the the introduction of golf in this country and was a member of several golf clubs.”

The accompanying drawing, taken from the five-unit patent, 481 (found on page 4 of volume 2 of Record), shows the makeup of that machine:

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Bluebook (online)
80 F.2d 594, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/worthington-mower-co-v-gustin-ca3-1935.