Goldstein v. Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co., 3551.

• Decision Date: 17 February 1927
• Docket Number: No. 3551.,3551.
• Citation: 17 F.2d 482
• Parties: GOLDSTEIN v. PHILADELPHIA & READING COAL & IRON CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

17 F.2d 482 (1927)

GOLDSTEIN v. PHILADELPHIA & READING COAL & IRON CO.

No. 3551.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

February 17, 1927.

Morris L. Levine, of New York City, and Cornelius B. Comegys, of Scranton, Pa., for appellant.

Wm. Clarke Mason, of Philadelphia, Pa., for appellee.

Before BUFFINGTON, WOOLLEY, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.

WOOLLEY, Circuit Judge.

This appeal is from a decree of the District Court allowing a motion of the appellee (plaintiff below) for leave to withdraw its bill in equity upon payment of costs.

The appellant (defendant below) rests his opposition to the court's action on authority of many cases which hold quite consistently and correctly, as applied to their particular facts, that a plaintiff cannot be allowed to discontinue his action when by so doing the defendant would be deprived of some legal right established or adjudged in the suit, or would be prejudiced (as distinguished from annoyed) by being subjected to another action. Hat-Sweat Mfg. Co. v. Waring (C. C.) 46 F. 87; Am. Bell Tel. Co. v. West. Union Tel. Co. (C. C. A.) 69 F. 666, 670; Pyrene Mfg. Co. v. Castle (D. C.) 240 F. 841, 843; C. & A. R. R. Co. v. Union Rolling Mill Co., 109 U. S. 702, 713, 3 S. Ct. 594, 27 L. Ed. 1081; Pullman's Palace Car Co. v. Central Trans. Co., 171 U. S. 138, 18 S. Ct. 808, 43 L. Ed. 108. The simplest instance of refusing leave to discontinue is where the defendant in replevin has filed a property bond; an instance of not infrequent occurrence is where the defendant in an action in equity has filed a cross-bill seeking affirmative relief and the case has proceeded on bill and cross-bill to a stage where the defendant having pleaded and partly established a cause of action of his own would be prejudiced by being remitted to a separate action. We shall not review the cases, for the latest and most authoritative exposition of the law of the subject may be found in Ex parte Skinner & Eddy Corporation, 265 U. S. 86, 92-94, 44 S. Ct. 446, 68 L. Ed. 912.

What happened in the instant case was this:

Omitting dates, except the first and last, the plaintiff company, on October 30, 1922, filed a bill in equity in a state court praying an injunction, preliminary and permanent, to restrain the defendant from removing culm from a culm pile situate on the land of both so as to let down culm from the side on the plaintiff's land to the side on the defendant's. A preliminary injunction was granted without hearing and on the defendant's...