Root v. Railway Company

• Decision Date: 01 October 1881
• Citation: 26 L.Ed. 975,105 U.S. 189
• Parties: ROOT v. RAILWAY COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

105 U.S. 189

105 U.S. 189

26 L.Ed. 975

ROOT v. RAILWAY COMPANY.

October Term, 1881

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Albert H. Walker for the appellant.

Mr. George Payson for the appellee.

MR. JUSTICE MATTHEWS delivered the opinion of the court.

Thomas Sayles, as assignee of the letters-patent originally granted to Henry Tanner for an improvement in railroad car brakes, dated July 6, 1852, and which, on July 5, 1866, were renewed and extended for the additional term of seven years, which expired July 6, 1873, filed his bill in the court below on Dec. 9, 1878, against the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Company. He avers that, by virtue of the assignments to him, he was invested with all rights of action for infringements of the patent which had occurred, and particularly those of which it was alleged the defendant had been guilty from Aug. 6, 1869, to July 6, 1873, having, as is averred, during that period, used upon its railroad cars the patented brakes, but how many, the bill states, the complainant is ignorant and cannot set forth, but avers that the number so used was large, and that defendant had derived, received, and realized great gains and profits therefrom, but to what amount he is ignorant and cannot set forth.

The prayer of the bill is that the defendant may be compelled to account for and pay to the complainant all the gains, profits, and savings which it derived, received, or realized from or by reason of the use of said brakes.

To this bill a general demurrer was filed, alleging, as grounds thereof, that the bill does not contain any matter of equity on which the court could grant any relief, and that the complainant is not entitled to the relief prayed for, because he had a plain, adequate, and complete remedy at law, and also because it appeared on the face of the bill that the causes of complaint were barred by the Statutes of Limitation both of the United States and of the State of Illinois.

This demurrer was sustained and the bill dismissed. The decree of the Circuit Court was brought here for review. Sayles having died, Charles T. Root was, as his executor, substituted in this court as the appellant.

The propositions mainly relied upon by the appellee in support of the decree, are,——

First, That after the expiration of a patent, equity has no jurisdiction to entertain a bill, merely for an account and the recovery of the profits of an infringer, during its existence, the remedy being at law for damages; and,

Second, That, even if, in certain cases, such a jurisdiction exists, the present does not fall within it.

On the other hand, it is contended on the part of the appellant that, in cases for the enforcement of the rights of patentees, resort may be had, as matter of right, to a court of equity, as a distinct head of its jurisdiction, for the mere purpose of establishing an infringement and ascertaining and recovering the profits of the infringer, upon the independent equity that he is for that purpose a trustee of his gains for the use of the true owner of the patent and liable to account as such. In support of this contention, we are referred by his counsel to numerous decisions of the Circuit Courts, many of which, it is claimed, are directly upon the point, and to several cases in this court, in which, it is alleged, the same doctrine is either virtually decided or assumed; which, it is further argued, though not supported by the modern decisions of the English chancery, is found in its earlier precedents.

An examination of the practice and opinions of the Circuit Courts undoubtedly shows much diversity, incapable of reconciliation, and makes it necessary, as far as it can be done, by a deliberate judgment of this court, to remove the question out of its present uncertainty, by a settlement upon some basis of principle, in harmony with our system of equity jurisprudence, developed and modified by legislation. To effect this satisfactorily and intelligently, it will be necessary to review the course of legislation, and judicial decision in this court, so far as it bears upon the question from the beginning.

Prior to the passage of the act of Feb. 15, 1819, c. 19 (3 Stat. 481), Congress had passed three laws, in execution of the power conferred by the Constitution itself, and in furtherance of the policy thereby indicated, to secure to inventors an exclusive right of property in their in ventions. The first of them, the act of April 10, 1790, c. 7 (1 Stat. 109), gave as a remedy for its violation an action at law upon the case for damages, and forfeited the infringing article. The next was the act of Feb. 21, 1793, c. 11 (1 Stat. 318), which fixed the rule and measure of damages recoverable in an action at law upon the act at three times the price at which the patentee had usually sold or licensed to other persons the use of the invention. This was changed by the act of April 17, 1800, c. 25 (2 Stat. 37), to three times the actual damage sustained by the patentee by reason of the infringement. By neither of these acts, however, was any jurisdiction conferred upon the courts of the United States in equity. In Livingston v. Van Ingen (1 Paine, 45), Mr. Justice Livingston held that to vest such jurisdiction by reason of the subject-matter, as a case arising under the laws of the United States, to be exercised in controversies between parties, without regard to their citizenship it required the express authority of an act of Congress; and the parties to that suit being citizens of New York, the bill was dismissed. The controversy was thereupon renewed in the courts of that State; and the Chancellor having refused the injunction asked for, it was brought by appeal into the court for the correction of errors. 9 Johns. (n. y.) 507. It was there objected that the right in question rested upon statute alone, which prescribed remedies at law for its violation, which, it must be deemed, were intended to be exclusive. But the decision affirmed the jurisdiction. 'The principle is,' said Kent, C. J. (p. 587), 'that statute privileges, no less than common-law rights, when in actual possession and exercise, will not be permitted to be disturbed until the opponent has fairly tried them at law and overthrown their pretension.' The same learned judge refers also to the practice of the Federal courts in granting injunctions under the patent law, mentioning two instances,—one, the case of Morse v. Reid, an injunction bill filed in 1796 to restrain the invasion of a copyright; the other, Whitney v. Fort, in which an injunction was granted to restrain the violation of the patent for the cotton-gin. Of course, in those cases the jurisdiction of the court depended on the citizenship of the parties.

Congress then passed the act of Feb. 15, 1819, c. 19, which enacted 'that the Circuit Courts of the United States shall have original cognizance, as well in equity as at law, of all actions, suits, controversies, and cases arising under any law of the United States, granting or confirming to authors or inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings, inventions, and discoveries; and upon any bill in equity, filed by any party aggrieved in any such cases, shall have authority to grant injunctions, according to the course and principles of courts of equity, to prevent the violation of the rights of any authors or inventors secured to them by any law of the United States, on such terms and conditions as the said courts may deem fit and reasonable.'

In the case of Sullivan v. Redfield (1 Paine, 441), which was decided in 1825, Mr. Justice Thompson, who in the Livingston case had sat as one of the judges of the State court, had occasion to consider the nature of the equity jurisdiction in patent suits. 'The equity jurisdiction,' he said, 'exercised by the court over patents for inventions is merely in aid of the common law, and in order to give more complete effect to the provisions of the statute under which the patent is granted.' And in answer to the argument that the act of 1819 gave a peremptory right to an equitable remedy by virtue of the patent itself, he said: 'This act does not enlarge or alter the powers of the court over the subject-matter of the bill or the cause of action. It only extends its jurisdiction to parties not before falling within it. Before this act it had been held that a citizen of one State could not obtain an injunction in the Circuit Court for a violation of a patent-right against a citizen of the same State, as no act of Congress authorized such suit. This act removed that objection and gave the jurisdiction, although the parties were citizens of the same State. But in the exercise of the jurisdiction in all cases of granting injunctions to prevent the violation of patent-rights the court is to proceed according to the course and principles of courts of equity in such cases. So that the questions presented in the present case are precisely where they would have been without this act.'

The substance of the act of 1819 was incorporated into the seventeenth section of the act of July 4, 1836, c. 357 (5 Stat. 117), so far as it related to inventors, but remained in force, after the passage of the latter act, so far as it gave cognizance to the courts of the United States of cases of copyright. It was under that provision of the act of 1819 that the case of Stevens v. Gladding arose and was decided. 17 How. 447. That was a bill for an injunction to restrain the violation of a copyright, and prayed for the recovery of the penalties given by the seventh section of the act of Feb. 3, 1831, c. 16, and for general relief. Mr. Justice Curtis, delivering the opinion of the court, said: 'There is nothing in this act of 1819 which extends the equity powers of the courts to the adjudication of forfeitures; it being manifestly intended that the...