Pillsbury-Washburn Flour-Mills Co. v. Eagle

• Citation: 86 F. 608
• Decision Date: 05 April 1898
• Docket Number: 462.
• Parties: Pillsbury-washburn FLOUR MILLS CO., Limited, et al. v. EAGLE.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

86 F. 608

Pillsbury-washburn FLOUR MILLS CO., Limited, et al. v. EAGLE.

No. 462.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

April 5, 1898

BUNN District Judge.

This suit is brought by the complainants, who, for many years have been engaged in the manufacture of flour on a large scale at the city of Minneapolis, Minn., against the defendants, who are engaged as wholesale and retail grocers in the sale of flour at Chicago, Ill., to enjoin the defendants from using as a part of their brand placed upon their barrels and sacks containing flour the words 'Minnesota Patent,' or 'Minneapolis Minnesota,' or 'Minneapolis, Minn.' The allegations of the complainants' bill, which are fully sustained by the evidence, are substantially these: The complainants are corporations, all, except one, organized under the laws of Minnesota. The Pillsbury-Washburn Flour Mills Company, Limited, is a corporation organized under the laws of Great Britain. These seven corporations separately own and operate, and have for many years, flouring mills situated in Minneapolis, numbering in all at the present time some 22 or 23 mills. The first mill was built in 1859, when the city had a population of less than 6,000 inhabitants. Since then the growth of the milling interest has kept pace with that of the city, so that, while the population of the city in 1896 was about 200,000, the product of the mills was 60,000 barrels per day, or some 13,000,000 barrels per year. The Pillsbury-Washburn Company alone own and operate five mills, with a daily capacity of 25,000 barrels ground packed, and put up ready for shipment, and with an annual output of about 4,000,000 barrels of flour. These mills all use in their manufacture only the highest grade of hard spring wheat grown in Minnesota and the Dakotas, and for the purpose of storing and handling the wheat own and operate many hundreds of elevators in Minneapolis and other parts of Minnesota and the Dakotas. They early adopted and employed the process of high grinding, and subsequently the roller grinding or Hungarian patent process, which is especially adapted to hard wheat. By this roller patent process, which is a development and extension of the high grinding process with improved machinery, the wheat is subjected to the operation of successive graduated rollers whereby the external portion, the wheat kernels are disintegrated removed, and successively carried away, so as to leave the interior or core of the wheat containing the nutritive gluten for disintegration separately and last, the process being to first remove by the action of the rollers the outside hull of the wheat, and then the starchy portions, thus preserving as nearly as possible the gluten for separate grinding, in this way obtaining a wheat flour which is from 40 to 50 per cent of gluten and the balance starch, and which is known as 'Patent' or 'Patent Process' flour, and is highly nutritious, and makes a fine white quality of bread, the flour commanding the highest price in the market. That the different operators and owners have used upon the sacks and barrels containing the flour manufactured at their respective mills various trade-marks and brands of two distinct kinds known as 'mill brands' and 'customers' brands,' the latter being subdivided into foreign and domestic. Mill brands consist of names, marks, and symbols peculiarly arranged, indicating by assertion or association the mill, establishment, or combination of mills producing the flour contained in the receptacle exhibiting and employing such brands. Customers' brands consist of names, marks, and symbols peculiarly arranged, and put on the flour receptacles, indicating sometimes by statement and implication and sometimes by association the flour jobber, wholesale or retail merchant, selecting and standing sponsor for the flour in the exhibiting sack or barrel, and frequently simply the place of manufacture, as being 'Minneapolis, Minn.' Nothing resulting from use, exploitation, association, or otherwise was, as a rule, used to identify the flour sold under these customers' brands as the product of any particular mill or mills; but the place of manufacture of the flour was usually indicated. The flour jobber or wholesale or retail merchant who exploits, introduces, and owns the brand, may, with perfect propriety, and frequently does, secure the flour for his particular brand from different mills operated by different persons. As a matter of fact, however, almost all the brands of flour, both mill and customers', used and employed at any time upon flour made at any of complainants' mills, have contained and distinctly and prominently exhibited thereon the words 'Minneapolis,' 'Minneapolis, Minn.,' or 'Minneapolis, Minnesota.' Many of said brands have also contained the words 'Minnesota' or 'Minnesota Patent' in addition to the word 'Minneapolis,' and a few brands have omitted the word 'Minneapolis,' and employed the words 'Minnesota' or 'Minnesota Patent' instead. The use of these last-named words, 'Minnesota' or 'Minnesota Patent,' means, and is understood by the trade, buyers, and consumers to mean, that the flour in the receptacle exhibiting them is made under the patent process as above described somewhere in the state of Minnesota. The words 'Minneapolis,' 'Minneapolis, Minn.,' or 'Minneapolis, Minnesota,' in flour brands signify universally to jobbers, wholesale, and retail merchants, flour traders and dealers, buyers and consumers that the flour in the receptacle imprinted therewith was made at a Minneapolis flouring mill, and, because of the location, methods, and reputation of Minneapolis, that the flour is 'Minnesota Patent' flour made at 'Minneapolis, Minnesota.' That the location of the said city of Minneapolis upon the Mississippi river is highly advantageous and desirable for flour milling. The states of Minnesota and North and South Dakota produce the highest grades and best qualities of hard spring wheat in enormous quantities, and the immense acreage therein devoted to this product is strong assurance that there will at all times be an ample wheat crop for supplying the Minneapolis mills, while the capital invested and population interested and employed in this hard spring wheat growing industry, and the adaptation of soil and climate to the production of such wheat, insure competition, and the progressive development of the industry, increase in production, and improvement in quality. Minneapolis is situate at the extreme southeast of this hard wheat region, and is a natural outlet of the wheat grown therein for shipment, either as grain or flour, throughout the United States, and especially to the manufacturing populations in the Central and Eastern states, where the consumption of hard spring wheat flour is extensive, and to the seaport cities for export. Principally because of the grain and flour trade, Minneapolis has become both a terminal point for many important railroads which concentrate there from points throughout the hard wheat growing district, and the initial point of many trunk lines terminating at points along the Great Lakes and in the Central, Southern, power induced the establishment of mills at Minneapolis early in the development of the country northwest thereof, and from 1859 until the present the growth of the flour industry there has been constant and rapid. This industry has always been the leading one of Minneapolis, and through it the place has in 37 years increased in population from less than 6,000 to about 200,000 inhabitants. Over 5,000 men find work in and about the flour mills and business, and as many more in connection with buying, selling, storing, and handling grain. Minneapolis has long been styled throughout the United States and also abroad the 'Flour City.' From the inception of the flour-milling business there in 1859, there has been among and between all the mills located there the keenest competition as to quality and quantity of flour made and sold, and early in the history of the milling industry at Minneapolis there was adopted the custom between millers of frequently examining and comparing the methods and machinery employed in the various mills, and of frequently examining and comparing the flour produced. All wheat used at the Minneapolis mills has for years been systematically inspected and graded by competent and disinterested persons appointed for that purpose by the state of Minnesota. The machinery in the mills is made almost entirely by two establishments. This comparison of mill products by the mill owners and operators has been made daily for over 12 years. Each day each mill submits to an expert two pounds of its high-grade flour, who examines, tests, and bakes it, and reports the result. These methods, and the close proximity of the mills, produce the greatest uniformity and identity in the flour made at the mills. Practically these mills have always been run on the same systems and methods, and with exactly similar machinery and appliances, employing the same grades of hard spring wheat grown in the same territory, and subjecting it to the same kind of inspection, and, as the necessary consequence, the flour ground at all the mills has been practically of the same classes, kinds, qualities, and reputations. As a result of this method and the continued and extended use of the words 'Minneapolis,' 'Minneapolis, Minn.,' and 'Minneapolis, Minnesota,' in and upon the brands, both mill and customers', and in advertisements, circulars, and announcements relating to the flour and brands, there has grown up, and for a long time has existed, and now exists, throughout the United States and in many foreign countries, a great reputation and demand for flour made in Minneapolis, Minn., and the flour made at the mills...