Lehigh Val. Coal Co. v. Hamblen
| Decision Date | 09 March 1885 |
| Citation | 23 F. 225 |
| Parties | LEHIGH VALLEY COAL CO. v. HAMBLEN and others. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
F Ullmann, for complainant.
Beck & Roberts, for defendants.
The complainant company was organized under the laws of Pennsylvania, in 1875, for the purpose of mining anthracite coal in that state, and selling the same there and elsewhere. It owns valuable coal mines in Pennsylvania, and does a large and lucrative business. For a number of years it has had an extensive and profitable business in the west and north-west and for convenience in the management of that business it has maintained an agency at Chicago, where it owns real estate including a dock worth $200,000, and has on hand coal worth $400,000. The defendants in this suit, wishing to create a corporation in Illinois bearing the same name as the complainant, to carry on the same business, filed their articles of association with the secretary of state on the twenty-sixth of December, 1884, under the general laws of Illinois authorizing the creation of corporations. The secretary of state thereupon issued to the defendants a license as commissioners to open books for subscription to the capital stock of the new corporation, to be known as the Lehigh Valley Coal Company. This suit was brought to prevent the defendants, in injunction, from receiving stock subscriptions, or taking any other steps necessary to be taken under the statute, in the creation of the new corporation.
The object of the defendants in causing an Illinois corporation to be created, bearing the same name as the complainant company, is obvious. They hope, by this means, to secure the benefit of part, at least, of the patronage which the complainant has acquired. Unwilling to engage in open, manly competition with the complainant and others carrying on the same business, the defendants resort to a trick or scheme whereby they hope to deceive the public, and obtain an unfair advantage of the complainant. Such conduct might be fairly characterized more harshly; and it is with extreme reluctance that I deny the complainant the relief prayed for.
The complainant is a foreign corporation, and it is only by comity that it is doing business in Illinois at all. The state can say to it any day, 'Go.' and it must go. That being so, I do not see that the complainant has a legal right to say a corporation shall not be created in Illinois bearing its (th...
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Modern Woodmen of America v. Hatfield
...observes that it has found no such case in which a foreign corporation has been heard to complain, and cites and quotes from Coal Co. v. Hamblen, supra. The weight of court's observations upon this question as an authority is, however, considerably affected by the latter part of the decisio......
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Continental Ins. Co. v. Continental Fire Ass'n
...complainant in not acting more promptly in enjoining the incorporation of defendant company is herein suggested, the case of Coal Co. v. Hamblen (D.C.) 23 F. 225, interesting. In that suit, Judge Gresham said: 'The complainant is a foreign corporation, and it is only by comity that it is do......
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General Industries Co. v. 20 Wacker Drive Bldg. Corp., 43 C 1307.
...taking in the state of its incorporation a name similar to that of the foreign corporation, counsel also cites Lehigh Valley Coal Company v. Hamblen et al., D.C., 23 F. 225 and Lawyers Title Ins. Co. v. Lawyers Title Insurance Corporation, 71 App.D.C. 120, 109 F.2d 35. In the Lehigh Valley ......
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People ex rel. Home Life Ins. Co. v. Home Life Assur. Co.
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