Red Star Laboratories Co. v. Pabst
| Decision Date | 21 February 1935 |
| Docket Number | No. 22717.,22717. |
| Citation | 359 Ill. 451,194 N.E. 734 |
| Parties | RED STAR LABORATORIES CO. v. PABST. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Action by the Red Star Laboratories Company against Edmund Friedolin Pabst, in which defendant was adjudged guilty of contempt and sentenced to jail for refusal to obey an order of the court relative to the production of certain documents, and he appeals.
Order reversed.
Appeal from Circuit Court, Cook County; Joseph Burke, Judge.
Langworthy, Stevens & McKeag, of Chicago, for appellant.
Josiah McRoberts and Packard, Barnes, McCaughey & Schumacher, all of Chicago, for appellee.
Edmund Friedolin Pabst was adjudged guilty of contempt and sentenced to jail by the circuit court of Cook county for refusal to obey an order of that court relative to the production of certain documents in the aboveentitled cause. He has prosecuted an appeal to this court.
The Red Star Laboratories Company, appellee, filed a bill of complaint in the circuit court against appellant, doing business as Pabst Chemical Company. The bill, as later amended, alleged that since the year 1921 appellee was engaged in the preparation of and sale to retail druggists for resale, a medicine known as ‘Double O Medicine,’ and charged defendant with infringement of appellee's trade-mark, unfair competition, imitation of appellee's corporate name, the name of its medicine, its cartons and labels, and numerous other specific acts, in an illegal scheme to injure complainant's business. The prayer was for injunctive relief, an accounting, and damages. Appellant's amended answer alleged that complainant had come into court with unclean hands because of unfair competition, and was guilty of laches. It denied injuring complainant in any manner and any liability to account for or pay any profits or damages because of any act of defendant. Exceptions were filed to the amended answer. While they were pending complainant filed a petition alleging that defendant had refused to produce for inspection certain of the documents described in the previous order of the court. A rule was entered requiring the defendant to show cause why he should not be punished for contempt for failure to produce them. By agreement of counsel the matter of the rule to show cause was taken under advisement by the court and continued until the disposition of the exceptions. Thereafter, substantially all of the exceptions were sustained, striking out all issues as to unclean hands, laches, and justification.
Upon the hearing on the rule to show cause defendant submitted samples of his salesmen's reports. He claimed there were over 300,000 salesmen's reports on 8,000 retail druggists, filling 150 filing cases, and that confidential matters not pertinent to any issue in the cause were commingled among them. The court found that the defendant was entitled to have the nonpertinent parts of the records and papers sealed up when they are produced for examination, and appointed Robert Kinmare, a reputable attorney and counselor at law, to examine the documents and seal up the portions not pertinent to the issues. The order provided that defendant pay in the first instance the costs and expenses of sealing up the documents, including the compensation of said attorney, and that they be taxed as costs in the cause. The defendant refused to comply with the order, and the aforesaid judgment for contempt was entered.
The order complained of was entered prior to the enactment of the Civil Practice Act (Smith-Hurd Ann. St. c. 110, § 125 et seq.), and was...
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...Transit Authority, 11 Ill.2d 255, 142 N.E.2d 81; Lester v. People, 150 Ill. 408, 23 N.E. 387, 37 N.E. 1004; Red Star Laboratories Co. v. Pabst, 359 Ill. 451, 194 N.E. 734; People ex rel. Jamontas v. Miller, 245 Ill.App. 524; Hayes v. Chicago Transit Authority, 340 Ill.App. 375, 92 N.E.2d 17......
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...it, and in a prosecution for contempt he may show in defense that the court had no authority to make the order. Red Star Laboratories Co. v. Pabst, 359 Ill. 451, 194 N.E. 734; Carden v. Ensminger, supra. Appellant insists that the complaint here sounds in tort for the breach of an implied d......
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...or would not inspect and what was or was not material to the issue.' (329 Ill. at 622, 161 N.E. at 141.) In Red Star Laboratories Co. v. Pabst, 359 Ill. 451, 194 N.E. 734 (1935), the court upon direct appeal reversed an order that required the defendant to pay the compensation of an attorne......
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...upon reasonable notice and that the evidence sought to be obtained is pertinent to the issues in the case. Red Star Laboratories Co., v. Pabst, 359 Ill. 451, 453, 194 N.E. 734. From the record, it does not appear that any material evidence sought by the defendants which was admissible under......
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