Bicycle Stepladder Co. v. Gordon

• Decision Date: 11 September 1893
• Citation: 57 F. 529
• Parties: BICYCLE STEPLADDER CO. v. GORDON.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

57 F. 529

BICYCLE STEPLADDER CO. v. GORDON.

United States Circuit Court, N.D. Illinois.

September 11, 1893

Elliott & Hopkins, for complainant.

Dyrenforth & Dyrenforth, for defendant.

JENKINS Circuit Judge.

The complaint files its bill to restrain the alleged infringement by the defendant of letters patent granted to the complainant for certain improvements in store service ladders. The bill charges that the complainant is a corporation organized under the laws of the state of Iowa, and that the defendant is a citizen of the state of Kentucky, residing at Lexington, in said state, 'and a business inhabitant of and doing business at the city of Chicago, Illinois.' Process was served upon the defendant within this district. Without otherwise appearing to the suit, the defendant moves to dismiss the bill upon the ground that upon the face of the bill it appears that the court is without jurisdiction, the defendant being a citizen of and resident within the state of Kentucky; and also asserting as a personal privilege his right to be sued only in the latter state. It is disclosed by the affidavits supporting and counter to the motion that the defendant, with his family, resides in the state of Kentucky in which state he exercises his political rights and privileges; that he came to Chicago about the 1st of June last, where he has since remained in charge of an exhibit of ladders of his own manufacture at the World's Columbian Exposition; that these ladders were manufactured at his factory in the state of Kentucky; that he has, during his sojourn in Chicago, taken some orders for his manufacture of ladders, which were filled from his manufactory in Kentucky one of which orders was from a resident of Chicago; and that he intends to return to his home in the state of Kentucky at the close of the Exposition.

Following the intimation of Judge Thayer in Reinstadler v Reeves, 33 F. 308, the defendant has seen fit to present the question of jurisdiction or of personal privilege by motion to dismiss, and not by demurrer or plea. The complainant making no objection to the manner in which the matter is brought to the attention of the court, I feel at liberty to determine the question involved without indorsing or considering the practice adopted.

The act of March 3, 1887, c. 373, § 1, (24 Stat. 552,) as corrected by the act of August 13, 1888, c. 866, (25 Stat. 434,) determining and asserting the jurisdiction of the circuit courts of the United States, contains this provision:

'And no civil suit shall be brought before either of the said courts against any person or by any original process or proceeding in any other district than that whereof he is an inhabitant; but, where the jurisdiction is founded only on the fact that the case is between citizens of different states, suit shall be brought only in the district of the residence of either the plaintiff or the defendant.'

The suit here being for an alleged infringement of patent granted by the United States, the court has jurisdiction of the subject-matter. The case falls, therefore, within the first clause of the provision quoted. The objection to the entertaining of the suit by this court is one going not to the jurisdiction of the court, but rests upon the assertion by the defendant of his personal privilege to be sued only in the district of which he is an inhabitant.

There has been some diversity of opinion in the circuit courts with respect to the proper definition of the term 'inhabitant,' within the meaning of the act. It was used in the original judiciary act, (1 Stat. 78,) as explained by Justice Gray in Shaw v. Mining...