H. C. Cook Co. v. Beecher
| Decision Date | 29 June 1909 |
| Docket Number | 731. |
| Citation | 172 F. 166 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut |
| Parties | H. C. COOK CO. v. BEECHER et al. |
Verenice Munger, for Plaintiff.
Edward A. Harriman, for defendants.
The plaintiff had a patent suit in this court against the Little River Manufacturing Company. The defendants were the directors of the company during all the time that case was pending. Upon a proper showing they could have been made codefendants in that suit. A strenuous effort was made to bring them in by amendment at the last moment, which was refused, because it came too late.
In the somewhat elaborate complaint now under discussion the plaintiff rehearses the story about the patent litigation and then goes on to allege that the defendants were joint trespassers with the Little River Manufacturing Company in respect of the infringing acts set forth in the former litigation and for which judgment went against the corporation. For that reason he insists that they ought to pay that judgment. His theory seems to be that, because the directors and the corporation were joint trespassers, they must all be jointly responsible for the damages found to have resulted from the trespass charged against one of them alone.
However that may be, it is very clear that the nature of the trespass is not material to the present litigation. The only questions to be litigated are: (1) Does the plaintiff own the judgment? (2) Were the corporation and the directors joint trespassers as alleged? (3) If they were, what is the situation now in respect of the judgment as to four of them about whom the plaintiff remained silent in the patent litigation?
The details of that litigation add nothing to the strength of the complaint. The plaintiff could as well have started with the fact that it had title to the judgment obtained in that litigation and then followed with the rest of its complaint which sets up new matter, and may or may not set forth a cause of action. To put the matter in a nutshell The plaintiff has a judgment for something near $12,000 damages for infringement of a patent. That is over and done with. The corporation is insolvent, and the plaintiff wishes the directors to pay that judgment. This is new matter, and is purely a question of law and fact, growing out of the relationship between the corporation and its directors, and is in no sense of the word a patent case. All the parties interested are citizens of Connecticut. The whole matter is one...
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...is different from a suit upon a judgment which is a new and independent action, not ancillary to the original action. H. C. Cook Co. v. Beecher, C.C.D.Conn.1909, 172 F. 166, affirmed 1910, 217 U.S. 497, 30 S.Ct. 601, 54 L.Ed. 855. The judgment creditor can still sue upon the Alaskan judgmen......
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