Standard Oil Co. v. Michie

• Decision Date: 20 July 1929
• Docket Number: No. 8606.,8606.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri
• Parties: STANDARD OIL CO. v. MICHIE.

34 F.2d 802 (1929)

STANDARD OIL CO. v. MICHIE.

No. 8606.

District Court, E. D. Missouri, E. D.

July 20, 1929.

Albert L. Green, of Chicago, Ill., and Allen Oliver, of Cape Girardeau, Mo., for plaintiff.

H. E. Alexander, of Cape Girardeau, Mo., and B. A. McKay, of Caruthersville, Mo., for defendant.

FARIS, District Judge.

Plaintiff sues to enjoin the use of the word "Standard," in the name and style "Standard Service Station," under which defendant carries on a competitive business, and for other relief.

Plaintiff is engaged in the business of selling, inter alia, gasoline and lubricating oils in Missouri, and in many other states of the Union. It was organized under the name of Standard Oil Company, at least as early as 1889, and under this name has been doing business, as said, in many states of the Union, and in Missouri since 1897. It carries on in Missouri both a retail and a wholesale business in gasoline and oils, having in the St. Louis district alone some 300 filling stations at which it retails its products. Many of these stations it owns outright; others it leases. It has a standard color scheme, which it uses to designate its stations and gasoline pumps, and in lettering its signs. This color scheme, however, differs according as to whether the station in question be a leased one, or one which is owned absolutely by plaintiff.

Both plaintiff and defendant, when this action was begun, had, and now have, retail stations for the sale of gasoline and oils in the town of Steele, in Pemiscot county, Mo. Defendant, in his place of business, also carries a line of tires and tubes, and perhaps renders service for the public in the repair of tires and tubes, and perhaps renders service in other similar matters. Some stress was put, in the trial of the case, upon this feature thereof. But it is so obvious that it cuts no figure whatever, that I need not discuss it further.

Plaintiff, for many years prior to 1921, had an agency for the sale of its products, at Caruthersville, Pemiscot county, Mo., a town some 15 or 20 miles from Steele, which, as said, is the locus in quo of the controversy now vexing the court.

In the year 1921 defendant became an agent of plaintiff at Steele, Mo., for the distribution of its oils at wholesale, and so continued for about one year. Thereafter defendant sold gasoline and oils at retail, buying from plaintiff a part, at least, of such oils, and so forth, until about November, 1926.

In 1925 defendant constructed a filling station and painted thereon two certain signs. These signs each bore the words "Standard Service Station." The background and letters of these signs were repainted some two years ago, in similitude of the color scheme of the plaintiff. The pumps, or some of them, of the defendant, are painted similarly and in the same colors used by plaintiff.

After the construction of defendant's filling station, and for a period of some three years thereafter, plaintiff made efforts to purchase the station of defendant. Failing to complete the deal, it bought a station already in competition with defendant, which it is now and for some 14 months has been operating. This station so purchased by plaintiff is in near proximity to that operated by defendant, being perhaps either just across a street, or diagonally across a street therefrom.

After defendant ceased to deal in gasoline and oils of plaintiff's production, plaintiff demanded of defendant that he remove his signs and other indicia alleged to be in simulation of plaintiff's business. Defendant refused, perhaps in November, 1928, for the last time, to do so, and this action was begun in March, 1929.

Numerous instances of confusion of defendant's business with that of plaintiff were shown on the trial. There was much evidence that the name "Standard," or that word when used in connection with the gasoline and lubricating oils business, has been lifted from the public domain and has taken on a secondary meaning, as wholly applicable to plaintiff and its business, and that the word "Standard" is generally understood, in such business, as referring to plaintiff's goods.

Defendant contends that he uses the word in the name and style of the business carried on by him, as indicative of the class of service which he holds himself out to the public as capable of rendering, and of the service which he does render; that is, that his services and his products, or the products sold by him, are up to date; that they measure up to the criteria established by the Bureau of Standards (and that such Bureau establishes standards of prescribed excellence with regard to gasolines and similar products, which, of course, it does not); and that thus he uses the word in its ordinary sense, or so-called dictionary sense, and not otherwise. And that all this has been done by him without any intent to benefit from the advertising and name of plaintiff in the trade in which both parties are engaged.

There was some evidence as to recent changes in painting on signs, pumps, and building, and as to the caps worn by the service station attendants of the respective parties, which might well be construed as a studied effort to bring about confusion. That there was confusion, the record abundantly shows.

But I am of opinion that it cuts no decisive figure in the case whether defendant's intent here was good or bad; that is to say, as to whether he was engaged in a studied effort so to simulate the business of ...