Pressed Steel Car Co. v. Union Pac. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 20 February 1917
• Citation: 240 F. 135
• Parties: PRESSED STEEL CAR CO. v. UNION PAC. R. CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

240 F. 135

PRESSED STEEL CAR CO. v. UNION PAC. R. CO.

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

February 20, 1917

George A. Ellis, of New York City, for the motion.

W. C Margeson, of New York City, opposed.

LEARNED HAND, District Judge (after stating the facts as above).

The jurisdiction of this court to entertain a bill in equity for discovery has certainly not disappeared for all purposes. It is true that its chief reason went when the disability of parties as witnesses was removed, but the jurisdiction once existing did not fail for that, Carpenter v. Winn, 221 U.S. 533, 539, 31 Sup.Ct. 683, 55 L.Ed. 842; Kelley v. Boettcher, 85 F. 55, 66, 29 C.C.A. 14; Indianapolis Gas Co. v. Indianapolis (C.C.) 90 F 196, 197; General Film Co. v. Sampliner, 232 F. 95 97, 146 C.C.A. 287. For example, the jurisdiction will be still exercised even in aid of an action at law, if the plaintiff cannot without it find out whom he should sue. Brown v. McDonald, 133 F. 897, 67 C.C.A. 59, 68 L.R.A. 462; Kurtz v. Brown, 152 F. 372, 81 C.C.A 498, 11 Ann.Cas. 576. Yet the jurisdiction will not be exercised, if the legal remedies are sufficient; like any other equitable remedy, it is exceptional, and the plaintiff must bring himself within the exception. Rindskopf v Platto (C.C.) 29 F. 130; Safford v. Ensign Mfg. Co., 120 F. 480, 56 C.C.A. 630; Heath v. Erie Railway, 9 Blatch. 316, 320, Fed. Cas. No. 6,307; Scotten v. Rosenblum (D.C.) 231 F. 357, affirmed January 16, 1917 (C.C.A.) 239 F. 1022. The dicta in Ex parte Boyd, 105 U.S. 647, 657, 26 L.Ed. 1200, and Brown v. Swann, 10 Pet. 497, 501, 9 L.Ed. 508, accord with these decisions, and United States v. Bitter Root Development Co., 200 U.S. 451, 475, 479, 26 Sup.Ct. 318, 50 L.Ed. 550, may be taken as a decision that the plaintiff in the bill must show that he needs more than what the modern statutory procedure gives him. Colgate v. Compagnie Francaise (C.C.) 23 F. 82, does, it is true, use some language seeming to indicate, not only that the jurisdiction of equity remains, but that it will be exercised without regard to any changes in legal procedure; yet I think that the actual decision must rest rather on the propriety of allowing the plaintiff to inspect the alleged infringement, or, since it was submerged, to have an adequate description of it. As such it rests rather upon the embarrassments under which a plaintiff labors in preparing his case if he has no definite knowledge of the supposed infringement.

The law, therefore, while it has rendered the bill in most cases obsolete, has in fact left it as a useful instrument for just those fundamental purposes for which it was originally devised. In those cases in which subpoena and subpoena duces tecum against his adversary will give a party all that injustice he may need, obviously, the bill will not lie. The principle of judicial parsimony will remove the occasion for most bills. If, however, the cause is of such a character that the plaintiff cannot adequately present his case by subpoena and especially if he needs a preliminary inspection of documents (Carpenter v. Winn, supra, 221 U.S. 539, 31 Sup.Ct. 683, 55 L.Ed. 842), then there is every reason to assert so ancient a source of equitable jurisdiction.

The bill at bar seems to me to present a case where equity should help the plaintiff. It is true that the allegations of the bill, regarded alone, do not justify any action; they amount to no more than the bare conclusion that the plaintiff cannot safely prosecute his action without the information desired. Nevertheless, I have the right to look at the complaint in the action at law and at the contract, and from these it follows that the relief is necessary.

The plaintiff's situation is in fact this: It has a contract with the defendant under which, whenever the defendant or any of its subsidiaries had a car...