Blackburn v. Southern California Gas Co., 277.

• Decision Date: 01 May 1936
• Docket Number: No. 277.,277.
• Citation: 14 F. Supp. 553
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of California
• Parties: BLACKBURN v. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS CO. et al.

14 F. Supp. 553

BLACKBURN v. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS CO. et al.

No. 277.

District Court, S. D. California, Central Division.

May 1, 1936.

Porter C. Blackburn and Marion P. Betty, both of Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiff.

Lyon & Lyon, by Frederick S. Lyon, and L. T. Rice, all of Los Angeles, Cal., for defendants.

McCORMICK, District Judge.

The court has announced from the bench its findings and conclusions favorable to defendant on the first cause of action that complainant had failed to establish the legal requirements of a valid copyright to the map of Imperial county, Cal., mentioned in the first cause of action in the amended complaint; and there remain to be decided the issues under the second cause of action in the amended complaint as amended during the hearing on March 5, 1936.

From a close comparison of the defendant company's map, Exhibits 14-B and H, with the plaintiff's copyrighted map, Exhibit 14-A, aided by the evidence, it is my opinion that infringement has been established. This conclusion seems to be justified, notwithstanding the testimony that the witness Coppard did not copy any part of Blackburn's copyrighted map in making the questioned map for the defendant company. It is a long stretch of time since 1927, when defendant's map was prepared by Mr. Coppard, and his memory of where he obtained the material that he put into the map that he then made is naturally indistinct and faulty. He appeared to be frank, and I think truthful, in stating that in many instances of similarity between the two maps he could not now find any material from which he made his drawings of roads and other designated points that appear in the defendant's map in suit. The striking similarities appearing in the two maps, some of which are pointed out by plaintiff's solicitors in the "Points and Authorities" used on the argument, and others which are graphically shown by the enlarged photographic exhibits introduced by the plaintiff in rebuttal evidence, while mute, are potent indicators that Mr. Coppard has forgotten that he used Blackburn's copyrighted map in his work for the defendant in making defendant's map shown by Exhibits H and 14-B. The fact that there was available at the civil engineering department and draftsman's unit thereof in defendant company's plant at least one Blackburn's copyrighted map, coupled with Coppard's admitted inspection of and marking upon such map, I think challenges the accuracy of Mr. Coppard's memory after so many years as to the material used by him in making defendant company's map, especially when viewed in the light of several glaring likenesses in the two maps under consideration. The placing of roads and other physical entities within township and section lines on the defendant's map the same as they appear on the plaintiff's copyrighted map, where no other source of material or information is clearly shown, justifies the inference that plaintiff's map was used, and to some extent copied, by the draftsman in making the maps of defendant that are typified by Plaintiff's Exhibit 14-B in evidence in this case.

While allowances must be made for the long period of time between 1927, when the questioned map of the defendant company was made, and the taking of evidence in this case after the commencement of this suit on May 31, 1934, as to defendant's ability to produce material other than plaintiff's copyrighted map from whence these similarities came, nevertheless the circumstantial evidence hereinbefore adverted to...