Brush Elec. Co. v. Electric Imp. Co. of San Jose

• Decision Date: 14 July 1892
• Citation: 51 F. 557
• Parties: BRUSH ELECTRIC CO. et al. v. ELECTRIC IMP. CO. OF SAN JOSE.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

51 F. 557

BRUSH ELECTRIC CO. et al. v. ELECTRIC IMP. CO. OF SAN JOSE.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

July 14, 1892

Statement by KNOWLES, District Judge.

The California Electric Light Company, and the San Jose Light &amp Power Company, desiring to commence a suit against the Electric Improvement Company of San Jose, for an infringement of a certain patent, joined with them as a plaintiff the Brush Electric Company. After the bill of complaint had been filed in the circuit court for the district of California the Brush Electric Company bearing upon the question of the right of the California Electric Light Company to use the name of said Brush Electric Company in the said action. The question of fact was considered and determined upon the affidavits. Important questions of law were presented and decided in the ruling of the court upon this motion. The court overruled the motion to dismiss. 49 F. 73. The Brush Electric Company appealed to this court from this order overruling its said motion.

The motion of appellees to dismiss our appeal is based on the ground that the order of January 18, 1892, refusing to dismiss the Brush Electric Company from the bill, is not appealable; that is, that the order is not a final order.

The facts are these: A bill was filed in the circuit court to enjoin an infringement of a patent. The bill was entitled 'Brush Electric Company, California Electric Light Co. San Jose Light and Power Co., vs. The Electric Improvement Co. of San Jose. ' The Brush Electric Company, the owner of the patent, moved to be dismissed from the suit, because it was begun without its authority, and it had never given any consent to any one to use its name in this litigation, and it did not desire to press the case. Its coplaintiff the California Electric Light Company objected, and affidavits were filed showing that the California Electric Light Company objected, and affidavits were filed showing that the California Electric Light Company was the licensee of the Brush Electric Company, and the light and power company was its sublicensee, but without its consent, and that the California Electric Light Company had no interest in the case. The court refused to dismiss the Brush Electric Company from the suit, and decided that the California Electric Light Company had the right to the use of its name in this suit, and that the Brush Electric Company should have no control over nor interest in the suit. From this order an appeal has been taken.

Since Forgay v. Conrad, 6 How. 204, the supreme court has many times repeated the doctrine that a final decision is one where the controversy of the parties as the merits is terminated; but no case like the one at bar has ever arisen, and, in every instance where the court has refused to entertain an appeal, the parties have been on the opposite side of the record, and the decree has been simply interlocutory; but many appeals have been entertained where the matter adjudged was final as to that point, although there remained others to be decided, and the state courts under a similar statute have given a like interpretation to a like statute, to prevent injustice. The language of the circuit court of appeals shall exercise appellate jurisdiction to review by appeal or by writ of error any final decision,' etc. The statute does not say that an appeal lies from the final decision, but from any final decision, thus contemplating what is well known in equity, viz., that there may be more than one final decision in a cause.

In Stich v. Goldner, 38 Cal. 609, the plaintiff sued defendant Dickenson to foreclose a mortgage. He denied that plaintiff was the owner of the note and mortgage. Goldner filed a complaint in intervention, Dickenson demurred to the intervention, and the demurrer was sustained, and judgment was thereupon entered against the intervener, and he appealed. The respondents claimed that the appeal was premature, and asked to have it dismissed, as no final judgment had been given in the case. The court said: 'This position was untenable, that there had been a final judgment against the intervener; so far as he was concerned, the judgment was final, and ended the litigation so far as he was concerned, the judgment was final, and ended the litigation so far as he was concerned, the judgment was final, and ended the litigation in that court. ' The same point was ruled the same way in People v. Pfeiffer, 59 Cal. 90; Coburn v. Smart, 53 Cal. 743; and Henry v. Insurance Co., (Colo. Sup.) 26 P. 319.

In Bronson v. Railroad Co., 2 Black, 529, a motion was made to dismiss the appeal, because there was no final decree within the meaning of the act giving the court jurisdiction. Some exceptions to the report of the master were pending and undetermined when the decree was made. DAVIS, J., commenting on the contention of defendants that there had been no final decree, and on the injury to plaintiffs if the appeal was refused, said: 'A rule from which consequences so injurious to the rights of parties litigant would necessarily result has never received the sanction of this court. This decree is not final, in the technical sense of the word, for something yet remains for the court below to do. But it was said by Justice TANEY in Forgay v. Conrad, 6 How. 203: 'This court has not therefore understood the words 'final decree' in this strict technical sense, but has given to them a more liberal, and, as we think, a more reasonable, construction, and one more consonant to the intention of the legislature.' ' And the appeal was sustained, because it determined the merits of the litigation as far as the appellant could control it.

In Thomson v. Dean, 7 Wall. 345, it was held that an appeal lay because the decree determined the principal matter in controversy between the parties; and that since it could not be changed, except by a new and distinct proceeding, it determined that matter finally. Trustees v. Greenough, 105 U.S. 527, is an instructive case on the right of appeal, and has been repeatedly approved. Concisely the case is this: In 1870 a bill was filed by Vose, a bondholder, against the trustees of the Florida Improvement Fund et al., to set aside certain fraudulent conveyances. By decree the management of the fund was taken out of the trustees, and large sums of money were divided among the bondholders. Vose had borne the whole burden of the litigation, and had advanced all the expenses. In 1875 he filed a petition in the suit showing these facts, and prayed for reimbursement out of the fund. The report was confirmed in part, and from this order an appeal was taken. At that time the litigation was undetermined. It was urged that this order was not a final decree determining the merits of the litigation between the parties, and hence not appealable. The court, at page 531, answered the contention, saying: 'The order is certainly a final determination of the particular matter arising upon the petition for allowance. Though incidental to the cause, the inquiry was a collateral one, having a distinct and independent character, and receiving a final decision that the main suit might continue for years. That the case is a peculiar one, is true, but, under all the circumstances, we think that the proceedings may be regarded as so far independent as to make the decision substantially a final decree for the purposes of an appeal.'

In Williams v. Morgan, 111 U.S. 689, 4 S.Ct. 638, the court again, speaking of an appeal from an order fixing the fee of a trustee in an unfinished case, said: 'It was in its nature final, and was made in a matter distinct from the general subject of litigation,-- a matter by itself which affected only the parties to the particular controversy. ' In Terry v. Sharon, 131 U.S. 46, 9 S.Ct. 705, after the decree of the circuit court, Sharon died, and F. W. Sharon, his executor, filed a bill of revivor. To this bill the defendant Terry demurred. The demurrer was overruled, and from the order Terry appealed. A motion to dismiss the appeal was made, because the order was not appealable; but Mr. Justice MILLER denied the motion, because, as he said, 'the order which the court made was so essentially decisive and important that the court did not doubt that it was appealable.'

Central Trust Co. v. Grant Locomotive Works, 135 U.S. 209, 10 S.Ct. 736, seems to us conclusive as to our right to maintain an appeal. Here, before any decree whatever in the main cause, on an ex parte application, certain orders were made directing certain property involved in the litigation to be delivered to an intervener, the plaintiff appealed, and, on motion to dismiss, Chief Justice FULLER, speaking for the court, said, (page 224, 135 U.S., and page 742, 10 Sup.Ct.Rep:) 'They were final in their nature, and made upon matters distinct from the general subject of litigation ' The last case in the federal courts illustrative of our position is...