Freeland v. Burdick
| Decision Date | 25 June 1918 |
| Citation | 204 S.W. 1123,200 Mo.App. 226 |
| Parties | JOHN S. FREELAND, Appellant, v. BESSIE BURDICK and JAMES SCOTT, Respondents |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Texas Circuit Court.--Hon. L. B. Woodside, Judge.
REVERSED and REMANDED (with directions.)
Judgment reversed and cause remanded.
Lamar & Lamar for appellant.
Hiett & Scott for respondents.
The plaintiff as owner of the premises and building heretofore known as the Park Hotel at Houston, Missouri, seeks to enjoin the defendant, a former proprietor of the hotel business there conducted, from using the name Park Hotel to designate a new hotel close by which defendant now owns or controls. The trial court denied any relief and dismissed plaintiff's bill.
The evidence showed that many years ago this property, now owned by plaintiff, was used as a hotel and took the name and has ever since been known as the Park Hotel. If not originally built for a hotel it is adapted to that purpose and has been so used for fifteen or twenty years. It seems to have been once called the Ozark Hotel but for many years it has been known and designated by signs as the Park Hotel. The defendant at one time managed the Southern Hotel in the same town--a hotel yet being run there--but some five or six years ago she gave up that hotel and leased the property in controversy, then and before that known as the Park Hotel and has since conducted same under that name. When she leased this property from the owner she also purchased the furniture and goods of the former tenant. No owner of this property has ever personally conducted the hotel but same has been done by successive tenants, four or five in number.
There is no doubt but that defendant greatly improved the patronage and reputation of the Park Hotel. Before her time it had been little more than a rooming house and its patronage came largely from the surrounding country. That, however, was before the days of automobiles and good roads and as Houston is an inland town there was not much travel there. The fact that the hotel has a much larger patronage than before defendant managed it, is due partly to her ability as a good hotel keeper and partly to the changed conditions.
The plaintiff purchased the hotel premises with the avowed purpose of personally conducting the hotel as soon as defendant's lease expired and so notified defendant. The defendant thereupon obtained control of a building and grounds, suitable for a hotel but not before so used, located just across the street from the old Park Hotel. This she began fitting up for a hotel with the avowed purpose of conducting it under the name of the Park Hotel. She avowed her purpose to remove a large sign having the words "Park Hotel" thereon, and which she had put up during her tenancy to replace a smaller one, to the new location across the street.
The question here presented is whether the name Park Hotel is attached and belongs to the premises and the successive owners thereof or belongs to the person or proprietor of the business there conducted and may be changed and carried by such proprietor to a new location. This precise question is a new one in this State but the principals which underlie the protection of trade names and the restraint of unfair competition are well settled.
The fact that plaintiff is a recent purchaser of the property in question and purchased it and received a conveyance therefor as so much real estate described by lot and block only is of little significance. This is the common way of conveying real estate regardless of its character and plaintiff stands in the shoes of and has all the rights of his predecessor in title. If the defendant has the right to do what she has threatened to do as against plaintiff she also had such right as against the former owner. One of the most vital elements of title and ownership is the right to transfer and convey same unimpaired to another and to hold otherwise is to impair the right of vendor as well as vendee. We shall consider the case therefor the same as if the former owner was plaintiff.
We think also that one or the other of these parties should have the exclusive right to use the trade name of Park Hotel at this town. To have two Park Hotels at this town under rival management would lead to great confusion and inconvenience to the public, whose rights are to be considered. The parties agree that the name is a valuable asset and it is not capable of partition in kind or of joint use.
Hotels, being generally built and designed for that particular use and no other, take local names which generally belong to and designate the place rather than the proprietor of the business. Hotels are generally classed with these particular establishments into which location enters as an essential element and where the trade name means that the goods produced are of that particular place rather than of a particular manufacturer. In such cases the name becomes an inseparable part of the building or premises and will pass with the sale or lease of the same, and cannot be severed therefrom even by the first adoptor or user of such name. [38 Cyc. 871; Armstrong v. Kleinhans, 82 Ky. 303; 56 Am. Rep. 894; Pepper v. Labrot, 8 F. 29; Booth v. Jarrett, 52 How. Pr. 169.] Nims on Unfair Competition and Trade Marks, page 42, section 21, speaking of names which attach to the locality or building says: Again at page 83, section 48, this same author says: "Some hotel names are personal names, others impersonal, certain of these names attach to a place, to a particular hotel regardless of its ownership; while others have been held to be the property of a person and to attach to him rather than the place." As particularly applicable to the case in hand this author then adds: "Where the name of a hotel was attached to it before a...
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