Steam-Gauge & Lantern Co. v. Meyrose

• Decision Date: 29 March 1886
• Citation: 27 F. 213
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri
• Parties: STEAM-GAUGE & LANTERN CO. v. MEYROSE. [1]

27 F. 213

STEAM-GAUGE & LANTERN CO. v. MEYROSE. ^[1]

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Missouri.

March 29, 1886

Hough Overall & Judson and E. S. Jenny, for complainant.

Edward J. O'Brien, for defendant.

BREWER J., (orally.)

In the cases of Steam-gauge & Lantern Co. v. Meyrose there are pleas of a former adjudication. The pleas set out that in 1880, in an action between the assignors of these plaintiffs and this defendant, a decree was entered dismissing the bill on the merits, and it is contended that that is an adjudication and estoppel against these bills. The complainants allege in this bill their patent, and that the defendants at this time and since that decree have been making lanterns which are an infringement upon their patent. How far can that decree on the merits, dismissing the bill, estop these complainants?

The estoppel must be certain. In the case of Russell v Place, 94 U.S. 606, Mr. Justice FIELD closes his opinion in these words: 'According to Coke an estoppel must be certain to the very intent, and if, upon the face of a record, anything is left to conjecture as to what is necessarily involved and decided, there is no estoppel in it when pleaded, and nothing conclusive in it when offered as evidence. ' The same doctrine is affirmed by a multitude of courts, quotations from whose opinions are found in the brief of the plaintiff. I give a few of them:

In Hooker v. Hubbard, 102 Mass. 245, is this language:

'The court are of opinion that upon the facts here presented the learned judge erred in extending the doctrine of estoppel by former judgment to the decree stated. Estoppels of this description are attended with qualifications which must be strictly observed. They are conclusive only as to facts which were directly put in issue and determined in the former suit. If the pleadings present several distinct propositions of fact, the judgment is not conclusive upon any one of them, unless it appears from the record or aliunde that the issue upon which it was rendered was upon that proposition.'

The same doctrine was laid down by the supreme court in Packet Co. v. Sickles, 5 Wall. 580, the court, by Mr. Justice NELSON, saying 'When a judgment is used in pleading as a technical estoppel, or is relied on by way of evidence as conclusive per se, it must appear by the record of the prior suit that the particular controversy sought to be concluded was necessarily tried and determined. * * * But even when it appears from the intrinsic evidence that the matter was properly within the issue controverted in the former suit, if it be not shown that the verdict and judgment necessarily involved its consideration and determination, it will not be concluded.'

Also, in Burlen v. Shannon, 99 Mass. 203:

'It is lawful to reason back from a judgment to the basis on which it stands, upon the obvious principle that where a conclusion is indisputable, and could have been drawn only from certain premises, the premises are equally indisputable with the conclusion, but such an inference must be inevitable, or it cannot be drawn. These we understand to be limitations of the rule, according to all well considered authorities, ancient and modern.'

Now what was necessarily involved and decided in that former decree? The bill in that case alleged the patent, that the defendants were making lanterns, and that those lanterns were an infringement on the patent. There was a general decree dismissing the bill upon its merits. Was it necessarily involved and decided that the patent was void? Might not the decision have been that the defendants were making no lanterns? Would not the decree necessarily have been dismissing the bill upon the merits, if there had simply been a failure to prove that the defendants were making lanterns? Now, if it is uncertain upon the face of the record as to what was in fact settled and decided, how can it be said that the decree bars this suit? Of course, the extent to which a judgment or...