Bryan & Co. v. Scurlock

• Decision Date: 24 June 1918
• Docket Number: No. 31731.,31731.
• Citation: 184 Iowa 378,168 N.W. 144
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court
• Parties: BRYAN & CO. v. SCURLOCK ET AL.

184 Iowa 378

168 N.W. 144

BRYAN & CO.

v.SCURLOCK ET AL.^a1

No. 31731.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

June 24, 1918.

Appeal from District Court, Black Hawk County; C. W. Mullan, Judge.

The plaintiffs claim that they and the defendants, other than Muehl, were joint adventurers in an attempt to produce a device to transmit the power used in operating a motor vehicle equally to both driving wheels; that Muehl was employed to further said joint venture and generally employed to give the parties the benefit of his experience as an expert mechanical engineer and as an inventor; that during the employment Muehl made certain discoveries; that he and the other defendants converted the same to their own use by obtaining patents thereon and organizing a company for manufacture and sale under such invention. With some exceptions that will be noted in course of the opinion, the suit of plaintiffs is in effect an attempt to have the defendants ordered to make specific performance. The trial court found for the plaintiffs, and the defendants appeal. The plaintiffs, too, have perfected an appeal which asserts that the relief which the court granted to plaintiffs should have been changed as they demanded. Affirmed.Pickett, Swisher & Farwell and J. T. Sullivan, all of Waterloo, for appellants.

Edwards, Longley, Ransier & Smith, of Waterloo, for appellees.

SALINGER, J.

[1][2][3][4] I. Appellants insist strenuously that the evidence does not sustain the decree as entered. This presents a question of fact. As the printed record consists of more than 400 pages, it is utterly impracticable within the limits of an opinion even to epitomize it, and to do so would help no one. The evidence has been read with the utmost care and with the attention that the large interests involved demand. We have to say that in our opinion it fully sustains the findings of the trial court, and does so if the testimony which the appellants insist was incompetent be excluded. Both parties agree, though they reach the agreement by different routes, that it is not material whether the defendants were engaged in a conspiracy to convert the interests of the plaintiffs in the property of the joint adventurers. And this is so. If there was such conversion, it is wholly immaterial that no conspiracy was used to accomplish it. The claims of these plaintiffs like any other may be established by permissible deductions from testimony given and by circumstances adduced in proof. Goss v. Lamin, 170 Iowa, 57, 152 N. W. 43. We think it is so established that the parties were joint adventurers; that the object of the venture as it finally developed was to use the inventive ability of Muehl to create a practicable device for transmission of power in motor vehicles; that while Muehl was in the employ of the parties he made such an invention; and that the same was thereafter capitalized by the defendants. If this be so, it follows that the trial judge rightly held that Muehl could assert no interest in the stock for which the invention discovered by him when an employé of the parties was capitalized. Solomons v. United States, 137 U. S. 342, 11 Sup. Ct. 88, 34 L. Ed. 667;Gill v. United States, 160 U. S. 426, 16 Sup. Ct. 322, 40 L. Ed. 480;Dempsey v. Dobson, 174 Pa. 122, 34 Atl. 459, 32 L. R. A. 761, 52 Am. St. Rep. 816;Eustis v. Eustis, 51 N. J. Eq. 565, 27 Atl. 439. It follows as well that the court rightly ordered that the defendants transfer to the plaintiffs certain shares of stock in the corporation which had capitalized the said invention. 23 Cyc. 355 and 361.

We agree with the trial court that Robinson v. McCormick, 20 App. D. C. 98, 10 Ann. Cas. 548, is not in conflict with the Solomons Case and may be distinguished therefrom, and are unable to agree with the contention made by the appellants in an application to have the case reheard below that the decision here should be controlled by cases like Hapgood v. Hewitt, 119 U. S. 226, 7 Sup. Ct. 193, 30 L. Ed. 369;Dalzell v. Dueber, 149 U. S. 315, 13 Sup. Ct. 886, 37 L. Ed. 749; and Pressed Steel Car Co. v. Hansen, 137 Fed. 403, 71 C. C. A. 207, 2 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1172. It was decreed, too, that within five days after notice was given that such stock had been delivered for the plaintiffs they should repay to the defendants Wolf and Scurlock each his pro rata share of the expenses incurred in developing such invention and in organizing said new company said in the decree to amount in the aggregate to $7,974.51. As we understand it, appellants do not contend that on the evidence as it now exists this allowance can or should be altered. We cannot interfere on the appeal of appellants. We now come to the appeal of the plaintiffs.

[5] II. In connection with the prayer for relief, including a money judgment against all defendants save the Gear Company, the plaintiffs, now the appellees, consented that their claim might be satisfied by delivery to plaintiffs of a stated amount of shares of stock and offered that in lieu of judgment for a sum of money to which they claimed they are entitled on account of the wrongful conversion to take a pro rata transfer of stock. They pleaded:

“This offer is not...