Johnson Steel Street Rail Co v. William Wharton, Jr Co

• Decision Date: 05 March 1894
• Docket Number: No. 114,114
• Citation: 152 U.S. 252,38 L.Ed. 429,14 S.Ct. 608
• Parties: JOHNSON STEEL STREET RAIL CO. v. WILLIAM WHARTON, JR., & CO. Limited
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

152 U.S. 252

14 S.Ct. 608

38 L.Ed. 429

JOHNSON STEEL STREET RAIL CO.

v WILLIAM WHARTON, JR., & CO. Limited.

No. 114.

March 5, 1894.

This was an action by William Wharton, Jr., & Co., Limited, to the use of William Wharton, Jr., & Co., incorporated, against the Johnson Steel Street Rail Company, to recover royalties for patented guard rails sold by the latter. An affidavit of defense filed by defendant was held insufficient, and judgment entered for plaintiff. Defendant then sued out this writ of error.

By written agreement executed November 24, 1885, between William Wharton, Jr., & Co., a limited partnership association, and the Johnson Steel Street Rail Company, a corporation,—to be hereafter referred to as the Wharton and Johnson Companies,—the latter acquired the right to make and sell, upon certain conditions, guard rails constructed according to the specifications attached to letters patent granted to William Wharton, Jr., for an improved guard rail.

The present action was brought upon this agreement of license, to recover the stipulated royalties or fees for guard rails sold and delivered by the Johnson Company between January 10, 1888, and June 4, 1889.

In its statement of demand the Wharton Company averred that the Johnson Company commenced and continued the sale of guard rails, and voluntarily rendered statements and paid the stipulated fees, down to January 1, 1887, but refused to pay those due between January 1, 1887, and January 10, 1888, on the ground that the rails made and sold by it were not covered by the Wharton patent; that, in a suit brought by the present plaintiff against the Johnson Company in the circuit court of the United States for the eastern district of Pennsylvania, it was adjudged that the rails sold by the defendant were covered by the Wharton patent, and judgment was entered for the amount of royalties to January 10, 1888; that from and after the latter date down to the expiration of the patent, June 4, 1889, the defendant continued to sell, under the agreement, rails of the same character as those that had been adjudged to be covered by the above patent.

The Johnson Company, admitting the manufacture and sale by it between January 10, 1888, and June 4, 1889, of certain girder guard rails of steel, averred that those manufactured by it were not such rails as were covered by the Wharton patent. It also admitted that the suit mentioned in the plaintiff's statement was brought and decided as set forth, but insisted that the decision was not binding in the present case, 'because the amount involved in the former suit was so small as not to entitle the defendant to a writ of error on the said judgment to the supreme court of the United States, whereas the amount involved in this suit is sufficient to so entitle the defendant,' and 'that the right of the defendant to have the issues involved in this case adjudicated by the supreme court of the United States, if a decision adverse to it is rendered by this [the circuit] court, cannot be taken away from it by reason of a former trial and judgment between the same parties, where the amount involved did not entitle the defendant to a review of the same.'

The court below held the affidavit of defense to be insufficient, and, the damages sustained by the defendant having been assessed at the sum of $6,306, judgment was rendered for that sum.

George Harding and Wayne MacVeagh for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 254-256 intentionally omitted] Frank P. Prichard and John G. Johnson, for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice HARLAN, after stating the facts, delivered the opinion of the court.

The question, upon the merits, which the defendant's affidavit of defense presented, was whether the girder guard rails manufactured and sold by it were covered by the Wharton patent, and by the license granted by the agreement of November 24, 1885. But that precise question, it is admitted, was presented and determined in the former suit between the same parties. And we are to inquire, on this writ of error, whether the court below erred in holding that the judgment in the former suit concluded that question between the parties. The learned counsel for the defendant insists that it did not, and bases his contention solely upon the ground that the former judgment was not, by reason of the limited amount involved, subject to review by this court.

Is it true that a defeated suitor in a court of general jurisdiction is at liberty, in a subsequent suit between himself and his adversary in the same or in any other court, to relitigate a matter directly put in issue and actually determined in the first suit, upon its appearing that the judgment in the first suit, by reason of the small amount in dispute, could not be reviewed by a court of appellate jurisdiction? Does the principle of res judicata, in its application to the judgments of courts of general jurisdiction, depend, in any degree, upon the inquiry whether the law subjects such judgments to re-examination by some other court? Upon principle and authority these questions must be answered in the negative. We have not been referred to, nor are we aware of, any adjudged case that would justify a different conclusion.

The object in establishing judicial tribunals is that controversies between parties, which may be the subject of litigation, shall be finally determined. The peace and order of society demand that matters distinctly put in issue and determined by a court of competent jurisdiction, as to parties and subject-matter, shall not be retried between the same parties, in any subsequent suit in any court. The exceptions to this rule that are recognized in cases of judgments obtained by fraud or collusion have no application to the present suit.

In Hopkins v. Lee, 6 Wheat. 109, 113, it was held that a fact directly presented and determined by a court of competent jurisdiction cannot be contested again between the same parties in the same or any other court. 'In this,' the court said, 'there is and ought to be no difference between a verdict and judgment in a court of common law and a decree of a court of equity. They both stand on the same footing, and may be offered in evidence under the same limitations, and it would be difficult to assign a reason why it should be otherwise. The rule has found its way into every system of jurisprudence, not only from its obvious fitness and propriety, but because, without it, an end could never be put to litigation. It is, therefore, not confined, in England or in this country, to judgments of the same court, or to the decisions of courts of concurrent jurisdiction, but extends to matters litigated before...