Roberts v. Sears, Roebuck & Co.

• Decision Date: 12 March 1980
• Docket Number: No. 79-1616,79-1616
• Citation: 205 USPQ 788,617 F.2d 460
• Parties: Peter M. ROBERTS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. SEARS, ROEBUCK AND CO., a corporation, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 460

617 F.2d 460

205 U.S.P.Q. 788

Peter M. ROBERTS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. SEARS, ROEBUCK AND CO., a corporation, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 79-1616.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Jan. 7, 1980.

Decided March 12, 1980.

Peter D. Kasdin, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellant.

Louis G. Davidson, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before SWYGERT, SPRECHER and BAUER, Circuit Judges.

SPRECHER, Circuit Judge.

This appeal arises out of a basic misunderstanding upon remand of the mandate conveyed by the prior appeal.

I

The plaintiff inventor sued the defendant retail store chain for breach of confidential relation, fraud, and negligent misrepresentation. The plaintiff prayed for rescission of the agreement assigning the patent rights to the defendant, an injunction against further use by the defendant, imposition of a constructive trust upon the defendant, an equitable accounting by the defendant and "such further equitable relief as may be appropriate." Included among these equitable prayers was a plea "that damages be awarded to plaintiff."

The original complaint was endorsed "plaintiff demands trial by jury." Relatively early in the proceedings, the plaintiff moved for recognition of his right to a jury trial. The district judge who was then assigned to the case stated in his order of May 10, 1973 that he "would characterize this action as equitable, being basically one for rescission with damages merely incidental to the equitable claims." The complaint at that time included two additional counts involving the infringement of the patent. Concluding that validity and infringement of a patent are matters of law to be decided by a jury, the judge ordered that plaintiff's right to a jury be affirmed. Prior to the jury trial, the plaintiff abandoned the two counts pertaining to patent matters and eliminated the prayer for an injunction in the remaining counts.

A jury trial was held from December 20, 1976 through January 18, 1977. At the conclusion, the district court instructed the jury that the complaint encompassed three separate claims: breach of a confidential relation, fraudulent misrepresentations and negligent misrepresentations. The court instructed the jury as follows in regard to money damages:

If you find in favor of the plaintiff upon either the first or second claim, then, one of the elements of the money damages to be considered by you may be the net value to the defendant of the profits and benefits derived from the use of plaintiff's invention. The award of money damages you make may equal the net profits which you find the defendant gained as a result of its merchandising of wrenches incorporating plaintiff's Quick Release invention and idea, minus any expenditures which you find the defendant has proved it incurred which it would not have incurred had it not merchandised such wrenches incorporating plaintiff's Quick Release invention and idea from the time of the contract in question to the present.

However, if you decide in favor of the plaintiff only upon the third claim, then, one of the elements of the money damages to be considered by you may be the value of a reasonable royalty on the Quick Release wrenches sold by the defendant from the time of the contract in question to the present.

The court further instructed the jury that "as a matter of law, any damages you may award under each claim will not be cumulative, and the plaintiff will not be permitted to collect damages under more than one claim." Separate verdict forms were supplied for each of the three claims. The jury found for the plaintiff on each claim and awarded damages of $1,000,000 on each claim. It is conceded by both parties that the one million dollar judgment is the total amount awarded by the jury (see, e. g., Brief of Plaintiff at 5). This judgment has been satisfied and the plaintiff has collected $1,000,000.

In a post-trial motion, the plaintiff sought equitable rescission and restitution. The district court held that when the plaintiff permitted the case to go to the jury he had elected his legal remedy under Illinois law and could not later also seek equitable relief. Plaintiff appealed, seeking the right to full equitable relief over and beyond the one million dollar legal relief. The defendant cross-appealed to set aside the money judgment against it.

In Roberts v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., 573 F.2d 976 (7th Cir. 1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 860, 99 S.Ct. 179, 58 L.Ed.2d 168 (1978), we affirmed the district court's judgment against defendant on all three claims in plaintiff's complaint and the court's decision not to alter plaintiff's monetary award, but reversed the court's determination that it lacked the power to award rescission and remanded to the district court for a determination of whether rescission is appropriate under the facts of this case.

Although this is a diversity case, we held that where a state procedural rule is derived from a judicial system that is fundamentally inconsistent with the federal judicial system, the state rule may give way to the federal procedural solution; and that Illinois retains separate courts of equity and law, whereas the distinction between law and equity has been abolished in the federal system. We then said:

We conclude that the district court correctly decided not to disturb the jury's monetary award, but that the court erred in not considering whether rescission of the contract and return of plaintiff's patent were appropriate.

The general rule as to when an election is necessary is that " 'a certain state of facts relied on as the basis of a certain remedy is inconsistent with, and repugnant to, another certain state of facts relied on as the basis of another remedy.' " Prudential Oil Corp. v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 418 F.Supp. 254, 257 (S.D.N.Y.1975). Here, the jury was instructed that plaintiff could receive profits for Counts I and II, fraud and breach of confidential relationship. Apparently dissatisfied with the size of the jury verdict, plaintiff sought in a post-trial motion to have the court reconsider the evidence and award relief based on essentially the same standard the jury used. To have granted plaintiff's request would have been completely unfair to Sears. It might have been better for the court to require the plaintiff to elect his remedy expressly prior to instructing the jury, but plaintiff did not object to the court's procedure, and therefore, must have been satisfied to let the jury determine the appropriate award. Having let the case go to the jury without getting the issue clarified, plaintiff should not be heard to complain about the outcome of that procedure.

With regard to an election between the profits awarded by the jury and return of the patent based on rescission, however, we see no basis for invoking the election of remedies doctrine. Based on the jury instruction, plaintiff will receive one million dollars as the measure of past profits earned by Sears up to the time of trial. That award, however, is not inconsistent with return of the patent so that plaintiff can receive the future benefits of the patent that Sears fraudulently acquired. There will be neither a double recovery nor a factual inconsistency between these remedies. See Prudential Oil Corp., supra at 257; G. Bogert, The Law of Trusts and Trustees § 946 (2d ed. 1962). Therefore, we conclude that going to the jury under a past profits instruction did not bar plaintiff from seeking rescission and thereby possibly recovering his patent. Whether rescission is appropriate, however, is an issue that should be decided in the first instance by the district court.

573 F.2d at 985-86 (emphasis in original) (footnotes omitted).

A short time after the case was docketed on remand, the defendant offered to make reassignment and delivered proposed drafts of reassignment to the plaintiff. When this offer was rejected, the defendant voluntarily prepared, executed, and tendered to the plaintiff through the district court reassignments of any and all rights in the patents obtained under and pursuant to the June 15, 1965 agreement between the plaintiff and defendant. ¹

Although this was the maximum additional remedy we intended to give the plaintiff, the district court on remand went far beyond that and ordered the entire case reopened for an accounting of all defendant's "unjust enrichment" back to June 15, 1965. Roberts v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., 471 F.Supp. 372, 374 (N.D.Ill.1979). Seizing upon the word "rescission," which we used only in the context of returning the plaintiff's patent, the district court, relying upon Illinois law, construed that rescission can only mean void from its inception, which, according to that court, permits the plaintiff to have a second chance to establish past damages or profits, despite the Illinois law as to election of remedies.

II

In our prior opinion, we repeatedly referred to the "return of plaintiff's patent" and when we used the word "rescission," we used it in the context of returning the plaintiff's patent. We did not say that the plaintiff could under any theory upon remand be entitled to restitution or additional damages or profits. In fact, we expressly said that the plaintiff did elect his remedy as to past damages or profits up to the time of the jury verdict and that return of his patent might be the most effective way of insuring that the plaintiff receive the future benefits of the patent. We remanded the case for the purpose of determining whether as an equitable matter the plaintiff should recover his patent. In retrospect, we would have been better advised to use some other word such as cancellation, termination or forfeiture of the June 15, 1965 agreement, or reconveyance or reassignment of plaintiff's patent, ² but at the time, "rescission" seemed to be an appropriate word to cover both the process of cancelling the agreement and returning the patent. ³ In any event, we believed...