Cook Company v. Frank Beecher
| Decision Date | 16 May 1910 |
| Docket Number | No. 659,659 |
| Citation | 54 L.Ed. 855,217 U.S. 497,30 S.Ct. 601 |
| Parties | H. C. COOK COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. FRANK H. BEECHER, Charles E. Fairchild, Thomas L. James, and William A. Ward |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. Verenice Munger for plaintiff in error.
Mr. Talcott H. Russell for defendants in error.
This case comes here on the single question of the jurisdiction of the circuit court, certified from the court below. 172 Fed. 166. The judge dismissed the complaint of his own motion, and the defendants in error confine themselves to the suggestion that for that reason the judgment should be reversed at the cost of the plaintiff in error, concurring in the argument that the judgment was wrong. As we are of opinion that the judgment was right, it will be unnecessary to consider that point.
The suit is brought by a Connecticut corporation against residents of Connecticut. We give an abridgment of the com- plaint. The plaintiff is the owner of a patent for finger nail clippers. The defendants, during the time of the acts complained of, were directors in control of another Connecticut corporation, the Little River Manufacturing Company. This company infringed the patent, and the plaintiff brought a suit in equity against it in the same circuit court, which ended in a decree for an injunction, $12,871 damages, and $496.35 costs. The defendants voted to continue the sale of the infringing clipper pending the suit, and also voted and caused to be executed a bond of indemnity from their company to the selling agent, against liability for the sale. As directors and as individuals they authorized and brought about such sales, and they directed the defense of the equity suit. In consequence of the expenditures to the foregoing ends, their company became and is insolvent, and the defendants knew that that would be the result of a judgment against it, but did the acts alleged for the purpose of increasing the value of their stock in the company, and of receiving the profits and dividends that might be received from the sale.
The plaintiff's argument is that the defendants and their corporation were joint tort feasors, and that this is a suit against the defendants for their part in infringing its patent, the judgment against their cotrespasser not having been satisfied. It is unnecessary to speculate whether this is an afterthought, or whether the complaint was framed with intentional ambiguity, so that,...
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Peacock v. Thomas
...and other supplementary proceedings involving third parties are inapposite. This case is governed by H.C. Cook Co. v. Beecher, 217 U.S. 497, 30 S.Ct. 601, 54 L.Ed. 855, in which the Court refused to authorize the exercise of ancillary jurisdiction in a subsequent lawsuit to impose an obliga......
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Argento v. Village of Melrose Park
...Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure Sec. 1444 at 219-220 (1971). The dissent, on the other hand, relies on H.C. Cook Co. v. Beecher, 217 U.S. 497, 30 S.Ct. 601, 54 L.Ed. 855 (1910). That case, decided over 75 years ago, is three paragraphs long containing a conclusion, but virtually no dis......
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Jsc Foreign Economic Ass'n Techno. v. Intern. Dev.
...have long required an independent jurisdictional basis, at least since the Supreme Court's decision in H.C. Cook Co. v. Beecher, 217 U.S. 497, 30 S.Ct. 601, 54 L.Ed. 855 (1910). Id. at The defendants claim that the holdings in Peacock and Epperson make it clear that a veil-piercing or alter......
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In re Transcolor Corporation, Case Nos. 98-65483-JS (Bankr.Md. 10/5/2007), Case Nos. 98-65483-JS.
...Ins. Co., 511 U.S. 375, 114 S.Ct. 1673, 128 L. Ed.2d 391 (1994)] at 380-381, 114 S.Ct., at 1677; H.C. Cook Co. v. Beecher, 217 U.S. 497, 498-499, 30 S.Ct. 601, 601-602, 54 L.Ed. 855 (1910). Consequently, claims alleged to be factually interdependent with and, hence, ancillary to claims brou......