Ferson v. Armour & Company

• Decision Date: 15 February 1923
• Docket Number: 22224
• Citation: 192 N.W. 125,109 Neb. 648
• Parties: LOUIE OSBORNE FERSON ET AL., APPELLANTS, v. ARMOUR & COMPANY ET AL., APPELLEES
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

192 N.W. 125

109 Neb. 648

LOUIE OSBORNE FERSON ET AL., APPELLANTS, v. ARMOUR & COMPANY ET AL., APPELLEES

No. 22224

Supreme Court of Nebraska

February 15, 1923

APPEAL from the district court for Douglas county: CHARLES A. GOSS JUDGE. Affirmed.

AFFIRMED.

John O Yeiser and John O. Yeiser, Jr., for appellants.

Kennedy Holland, DeLacy & McLaughlin, Wayne Selby, Sears, Horan & Sheppard, Baldrige & Saxton, Gaines, Van Orsdel & Gaines, W. H. Herdman, Montgomery, Hall & Young, Gurley, Fitch & West, Brown, Baxter & Van Dusen, I. J. Dunn and Chester A. Legg, contra.

Heard before MORRISSEY, C. J., ROSE, ALDRICH, DAY and GOOD, JJ., TROUP, District Judge.

OPINION

ROSE, J.

This proceeding was instituted April 9, 1919, to recover $ 120,000,000 in damages. Plaintiffs claim to have procured from the government of the United States January 8, 1901, a patent for the invention or discovery of a process for the manufacture of a biscuit or ration combining pork and beans. They also claim to be owners of similar patents issued by other governments. Defendants are corporations and individuals engaged in the packing industries and in other industrial enterprises. The demand of plaintiffs for relief seems to be based on a conspiracy which they claim resulted in personal injuries and indignities and in the destruction or loss of exclusive rights, investments, property, business and profits protected by their patents.

Though the proceeding has been pending in court nearly four years, it has not passed beyond the petitions and the conduct of plaintiffs and their counsel.

Four petitions were filed. The first covered approximately 400 pages of matter, containing, among other things, inflammatory language, conclusions of fact and law, redundant allegations, unnecessary repetitions, scandal, private chat, personal episodes, evidence, criminal charges and other extraneous matters having no legitimate relation to the stating of a cause of action for damages. These flagrant violations of the rules of pleading stand out conspicuously on the face of the petition. They cumber the record, harass defendants and consume time which the court should devote to litigants who invoke processes of the court and judicial powers in an orderly manner. The law does not require defendants to answer such a petition, nor are they required, in attacking it, to perform services equivalent to the drafting of a petition stating in proper form a cause of action against themselves. Following the proper procedure in a case like this, the district court struck the first petition from the files.

Afterward, a shorter petition was filed, and it was also stricken from the record because it did not conform to the statutory rule requiring, "A statement of the facts constituting the cause of action in ordinary and concise language and without repetition." Comp. St. 1922, sec. 8608.

Later, a third petition, containing generally the improper matter and the other infirmities in both the first and the second petitions, was filed. This was also stricken from the files, the findings of the trial court containing, among other things the following:

"The court further finds that the plaintiffs have been contemptuous of the court, constructively and legally, filing petitions repeatedly, and particularly in filing their third amended petition, after being advised by the court that previous petitions with like defects were improper, and after the striking of such previous petitions from the files; but the court does not find that the plaintiffs are actually and actively...