Silver Laundry & Towel Co. v. Silver

• Decision Date: 21 May 1917
• Docket Number: No. 12280.,12280.
• Citation: 195 S.W. 529
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals
• Parties: SILVER LAUNDRY & TOWEL CO. v. SILVER.

195 S.W. 529

SILVER LAUNDRY & TOWEL CO. v. SILVER.

No. 12280.

Kansas City Court of Appeals. Missouri.

May 21, 1917.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jackson County; Thos. B. Buckner, Judge.

"Not to be officially published."

Action by the Silver Laundry & Towel Company against S. Silver, doing business under the name of Silver Cleaners, Dyers and Tailors. From an adverse judgment, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Henry C. Solomon, of Kansas City, for appellant. John W. Patterson and C. R. Leslie, both of Kansas City, for respondent.

TRIMBLE, J.

This is an action in equity to enjoin the defendant from advertising his business in telephone directories and elsewhere as "The Silver Cleaners, Dyers and Tailors, 2317 Independence avenue, telephone East 2308." Plaintiff's corporate name is "Silver Laundry & Towel Company." It conducts a business having several departments, one of which does family laundry, another launders and furnishes clean towels to offices and public buildings, and another does dry cleaning and repairing. To get these different departments before the public, plaintiff lists itself in the directories as "Silver Laundry, Towel Department," and "Silver Dry Cleaning Company, Silver Laundry Company owners, 819 East 12th street." A temporary injunction was issued, and thereafter the case was tried, resulting in a decree for defendant and a dissolution of the injunction. Plaintiff has appealed.

The defendant immigrated to this country in October, 1907. He was a Russian, and in the language of that country bore the name of "Sacharja Silverwagen," which, as Judge Lamm says, is pronounced as it is spelled. Immediately upon his arrival, he evinced his sincere desire to assimilate American principles and ideals, and become one of us, by changing his name to that of its American equivalent, namely, "Sam Silver" — his surname being shortened to the first half thereof in keeping with our Western ideas of brevity and euphony. This was done before he applied for naturalization papers. He has borne that name ever since. He entered the business of cleaning, dyeing, tailoring, and pressing clothes, and, being of frugal and industrious habits, was finally enabled to buy the business of that sort, known then as the Bonaventure Cleaners and Dyers, at 2317 Independence avenue, Kansas City, Mo., where he has been up to the present time. After he had become acquainted somewhat in the city, and people had gotten acquainted with him under the name of Sam Silver, he eliminated the word "Bonaventure" and inserted his own name, and ran his business under the name of, and advertised it as, "The Silver Cleaners, Dyers and Tailors, 2317 Independence avenue, telephone East 2308." He did no laundry work, but did dyeing, cleaning, pressing, repairing and tailoring.

The right claimed by plaintiff, and which it herein seeks to enforce, is the right to protect itself from unfair competition by the unlawful use of a nonexclusive trade-name in its secondary meaning. Furniture Hospital v. Dorfman, 179 Mo. App. 302, 306, 166 S. W. 861. The corporate name of plaintiff is the "Silver Laundry & Towel Company," and its various advertisements are made under the style of the "Silver Laundry, Towel Department," and "Silver Dry Cleaning Company." We pass the question whether the mere method of thus advertising the various branches of a business conducted under the name of the "Silver Laundry & Towel Company" will create a trade-name with a secondary meaning, and assume (without deciding) that it can and may do so. It will be observed that the only similarity in the name by which plaintiff advertises the various branches of its business and the name under which defendant carries on and advertises his business is in the word "Silver." Aside from that word, there is nothing to suggest a similarity, and the plaintiff admits that it is the use of the word "Silver" to which it objects.

There is no question but that defendant's name of Silver was honestly acquired, and that it was not...