Jonathan Mills Mfg. Co. v. Whitehurst, 631.

• Decision Date: 03 February 1894
• Docket Number: 631.
• Citation: 60 F. 81
• Parties: JONATHAN MILLS MANUF'G CO. v. WHITEHURST et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Ohio

60 F. 81

JONATHAN MILLS MANUF'G CO. v. WHITEHURST et al.

No. 631.

United States Circuit Court, S.D. Ohio, Eastern Division.

February 3, 1894

Poole &amp Brown, for complainants.

George J. Murray, for respondents.

SAGE District Judge (orally).

This cause is before the court upon a petition for rehearing setting forth that after the opinion was filed defendants' counsel for the first time learned that in a suit in the circuit court for the county of Wayne, state of Michigan, in chancery, it was determined that patent No 267,098, upon which this suit is based, was the property of the George T. Smith Middlings Purifier Company, and that in fraud of its rights it had been transferred by George T Smith, he holding the title, as its trustee, to his wife, Eliza B. Smith, and by her to Charles H. Plummer, whose executor was a defendant in said suit.

It was further determined that both said assignments were in fraud of the George T. Smith Middlings Purifier Company and its creditors, and the defendants were, by the decree in said cause, ordered to make the necessary transfers to vest the title to said patent (together with other patents, which had been by said George T. Smith fraudulently assigned) in the complainants in said suit, who were the receivers of said George T. Smith Middlings Purifier Company. It was also ordered that the decree itself should operate as an assignment, transfer, and release of all the right, title, and interest, legal or equitable, owned or claimed by said Eliza B. Smith, George T. Smith, or said Plummer, or any of them, at the time of filing the bill in said suit, to wit, August 13, 1890.

The petition for rehearing further sets forth that it appears from the assignment from Jonathan Mills to the complainant herein--that is to say, to the Jonathan Mills Manufacturing Company-- that said complainant had full notice of the rights of the George T. Smith Middlings Purifier Company at the time when it procured said George T. Smith to make the transfer of said patent to George Wardlow (Exhibit No. 11) on August 15, 1892, and also when it took from said Wardlow the transfer (Exhibit No. 12) on the 23d day of August 1892; that it also appears from the records of the patent office that prior to the assignment by said Mills to the complainant (Exhibit No. 13) he had on March 13, 1884, and February 1, 1886, assigned all his right in the patent upon which this suit is brought to the Cummer...