Manhattan Shirt Co. v. Sarnoffirving Hat Stores, Inc.
| Decision Date | 16 December 1931 |
| Parties | MANHATTAN SHIRT CO. v. SARNOFFIRVING HAT STORES, Inc., et al. |
| Court | Court of Chancery of Delaware |
MANHATTAN SHIRT CO.
v.
SARNOFFIRVING HAT STORES, Inc., et al.
Court of Chancery of Delaware.
Dec. 16, 1931.
Suit by the Manhattan Shirt Company, a corporation of the state of New York, against the Sarnoff-Irving Hat Stores, Incorporated, a corporation of the state of New York, and another, in which Robert Reis & Co. intervened. On application of intervener for leave to file a cross-bill.
Application denied.
Injunction bill to restrain the corporation defendant (the defendant Mintz being its store manager) from selling men's wearing apparel on which the name or label "Manhattan," or other like or similar word appears, and from representing orally or otherwise that certain products exhibited for sale by the defendant, bearing said label, are the product of the complainant when in
fact they are not, and for an accounting and damages.
The bill alleges that since prior to 1869 the complainant and its predecessors have used the word "Manhattan" to designate the men's wearing apparel manufactured by them, and that the name, when so placed on such articles of manufacture, has become known to the public as a mark identifying the complainant as the source of. their origin. It is further alleged that the complainant and its predecessors have spent substantial sums of money in associating the name "Manhattan" in the public mind with the complainant as the manufacturer of articles bearing that label; that the articles manufactured by the complainant and marketed under the name "Manhattan" are of superior quality; but that the defendant, to the great injury and damage of the complainant, has been and still is engaged in selling articles of men's wearing apparel (not manufactured by the complainant) of inferior quality with the label of "Manhattan" affixed thereto, whereby goods not manufactured by the complainant are falsely passed on to the purchasing public as goods of the complainant's make.
Robert Reis & Company, a New York corporation, has filed a petition for leave to intervene as a defendant for the purpose of filing an answer and cross-bill.
The complainant interposed no objection to the intervention for purpose of filing an answer; but objects to the granting of leave to intervene for the purpose of filing a cross-bill.
The proposed cross-bill has been exhibited to the court. It sets out that the articles sold by the defendant under the trade-name "Manhattan" are of the intervener's manufacture; that the intervenor has the right...
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