Collins v. Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, 361.

• Decision Date: 07 August 1939
• Docket Number: No. 361.,361.
• Citation: 106 F.2d 83
• Parties: COLLINS v. METRO-GOLDWYN PICTURES CORPORATION et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

106 F.2d 83 (1939)

COLLINS v. METRO-GOLDWYN PICTURES CORPORATION et al.

No. 361.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

August 7, 1939.

Harry Weinberger, of New York City (Harold M. Weinberger and Chester A. Pearlman, both of New York City, of counsel), for appellant.

J. Robert Rubin, of New York City, (Samuel D. Cohen, David O. Decker, and Earle L. Beatty, all of New York City, of counsel), for appellees.

Before L. HAND, AUGUSTUS N. HAND, and CLARK, Circuit Judges.

AUGUSTUS N. HAND, Circuit Judge.

The question to be met at the outset is whether an appeal will lie from an order dismissing a claim for infringement of the copyright of a book when the court has not disposed of a claim joined with it for unfair competition, alleged to have arisen from the use of the title of the copyrighted book as the title of an alleged infringing motion picture. In Sheppy v. Stevens, 2 Cir., 200 F. 946, we held that an appeal would not lie in a case similar to the present. There the defendant demurred to two separate causes of action. The demurrer to the first was sustained. The demurrer to the second was overruled, but the defendant was permitted to withdraw it and answer. The issues raised by the answer were not tried or otherwise disposed of prior to the attempted appeal by the complainant from dismissal of the first cause of action. The reason given for dismissing the appeal was that the "so-called final judgment was not final because it did not dispose of all the matters in litigation between the parties involved by the pleadings." While the decision was cited by Justice Brandeis in Collins v. Miller, 252 U.S. 364, 370, 40 S.Ct. 347, 349, 64 L.Ed. 616, in support of the proposition that "the judgment to be appealable should be final not only as to all the parties, but as to the whole subject-matter and as to all the causes of action involved", the facts before him did not involve a situation like the one here. There a single writ of habeas corpus was sued out by a defendant in an extradition proceeding who sought to prevent extradition claimed on three grounds. A writ was denied as to one charge and granted as to the other charges, but with the provision that the relator should be remanded to await further proceedings upon the last two charges. Upon an appeal by both parties, the appeal was dismissed on the ground that the judgment in habeas corpus was not final. The question before the court was whether the relator should be extradited or discharged. His claim was based upon the alleged invalidity of his detention. The decision amounted to no more than a holding that the disposition of the writ was not final when only certain of the grounds for the relief sought had been passed upon. In our opinion, the decision in Collins v. Miller does not preclude us from reviewing our decision in Sheppy v. Stevens, 2 Cir., 200 F. 946.

The Circuit Court of Appeal for the Sixth Circuit, composed of Taft and Lurton, Circuit Judges, and Barr, District Judge, held in Klever v. Seawall, 6 Cir., 65 F. 373, that an appeal would lie from a judgment finally disposing of a single cause of action although other causes of action joined with it had not then been adjudicated. Taft, J., said (65 F. at page 377): "It cannot affect the finality of a judgment that the cause of action upon which it was rendered was united in the same petition with other causes of action which have not yet been finally adjudicated."

The decision in Klever v. Seawall, 6 Cir., 65 F. 373, was cited in Sheppy v. Stevens, and was thought to lay down a contrary rule; but in Scriven v. North, 134 F. 366, the Fourth Circuit, and in Historical Pub. Co. v. Jones Bros. Pub. Co., 231 F. 784, the Third Circuit, under circumstances closely resembling those in Sheppy v. Stevens, held that an appeal would lie.

There is a manifest inconvenience in deferring the review of the disposition of a claim, though it has been finally disposed of, until other separable claims have been adjudicated, especially in view of the extensive provisions made by the new Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c, for the joinder of claims in a single suit. This consideration was undoubtedly the reason for the adoption of Rule 54 (b) which reads as follows: "When more than one claim for relief is presented in an action, the court at any stage, upon a determination of the issues material to a particular claim and all counterclaims arising out of the transaction or occurrence which is the subject matter of the claim, may enter a judgment disposing of such claim. The judgment shall terminate the action with respect to the claim so disposed of and the action shall proceed as to the remaining claims. In case a separate judgment is so entered, the court by order may stay its enforcement until the entering of a subsequent judgment or judgments and may prescribe such conditions as are necessary to secure the benefit thereof to the party in whose favor the judgment is entered."

The new Rules provide for the presentation of numerous claims and the participation of multiple parties in a single civil action. Rules 13, 14, 18, 20 and 24. Rule 18 authorizes unlimited joinder of claims where there is only one plaintiff and one defendant. It is evident that the court must be given extensive discretionary powers in order to expedite a determination of the issues and avoid delay and inconvenience. Rule 42 (b) conferring power to order a separate trial of any claim or any separate issue, and Rule 54 (b) conferring power to enter separate judgments at various stages, appear to have been designed to meet the difficulties arising from these liberal joinder provisions.

While it is true that the new Rules do not purport to deal with matters of jurisdiction, see Rule 82, and consequently are not strictly binding for the purpose of determining whether a judgment is "final" in a jurisdictional sense and hence appealable, they do provide that the final determination of the issues material to a particular claim and all counterclaims arising out of the transaction or occurrence which is the subject matter of the claim may be embodied in a "judgment" terminating the action with respect to the claim so disposed of. It seems unlikely that such a judgment can reasonably be regarded as other than final and appealable. While the new Rules have not yet gone into effect as to copyright cases, they have been made applicable to such cases on and after September 1, 1939 (Copyright Rules, rule 1, as amended, 17 U.S.C.A. following section 53), and, at the time of the present appeal, were applicable to all other proceedings at law and in equity. Rules of Civil Procedure, rules 81, 86. They indicate a definite policy to treat a judgment on a separate claim as so far final that it may be enforced by execution. It would clearly be held appealable if capable of immediate enforcement. Forgay v. Conrad, 6 How. 201, 12 L.Ed. 404; Thomson v. Dean, 7 Wall. 342, 19 L.Ed. 94. It seems unlikely that such a judgment, whether or not enforceable, is not to be regarded as final for purposes of appeal.

In the light of the policy implicit in the new Rules and of the decisions in Klever v. Seawall, 6 Cir., 65 F. 373; Scriven v. North, 4 Cir., 134 F. 366, and Historical Pub. Co. v. Jones Bros. Pub. Co., 3 Cir., 231 F. 784, we think that the doctrine in Sheppy v. Stevens, 2 Cir., 200 F. 946, should be overruled. The same reasoning would seem to apply to the rule followed in Stromberg Motor Devices Co. v. Arnson, 2 Cir., 239 F. 891, where claims for the infringement of separate patents were asserted in a single suit. This is in accord with numerous decisions of the Supreme Court holding that final determinations of separable controversies involved in a single suit are appealable. See, e. g., Withenbury v. United States, 5 Wall. 819, 18 L.Ed. 613; Trustees of Internal Improv. Fund v. Greenough, 105 U.S. 527, 26 L.Ed. 1157; Williams v. Morgan, 111 U.S. 684, 4 S.Ct. 638, 28 L.Ed. 559; Central Trust Co. v. Grant Locomotive Works, 135 U.S. 207, 10 S.Ct. 736, 34 L.Ed. 97; Hill v. Chicago & Evanston R. Co., 140 U.S. 52, 11 S.Ct. 690, 35 L.Ed. 331; United States v. River Rouge Imp. Co., 269 U.S. 411, 46 S.Ct. 144, 70 L.Ed. 339.

We are not unmindful of the holding in Hurn v. Oursler, 289 U.S. 238, 53 S.Ct. 586, 77 L.Ed. 1148, that claims for copyright infringement and for unfair competition are to be regarded as part of a single cause of action for the purposes of federal jurisdiction. But the court in determining the jurisdictional question before it carefully limited its definition of a cause of action to a case where the bounds between state and federal jurisdiction were being settled. We hold that the claims here sued on could properly be disposed of separately by the trial court and that the order dismissing the copyright claim was a...