Steam Stone-Cutter Co. v. Sheldons

• Decision Date: 12 March 1883
• Parties: STEAM STONE CUTTER CO. v. SHELDONS and others.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Vermont

15 F. 608

STEAM STONE CUTTER CO. v. SHELDONS and others.

United States Circuit Court, D. Vermont.

March 12, 1883

Aldace F. Walker, for orator.

Walter C. Dunton, for defendants.

WHEELER J.

This suit is brought for relief against infringement of several patents owned by the orator by the use of machines embodying the patented inventions bought by the defendants of the Windsor Manufacturing Company, with a guaranty of the right to use. The orator brought suit against the Windsor Manufacturing Company for infringement of the same patents and claimed to recover therefor the profits on these sales of the defendants here. To this the Windsor Manufacturing Company objected on account of the guaranty. Upon this question it was held that the liability on the guaranty would not relieve that company from the liability to account for the profits on these sales, for the reason that after a recovery and satisfaction clearly, if not after a recovery only, for those profits, the right to use those machines would have passed to these defendants, so that they would not be liable to the orator for the use of the machines, and there would be no liability over on the guaranty to take away or reduce the profits; and a decree was passed for the recovery, among other things, of these profits. Steam Stone Cutter Co. v. Windsor Manuf'g Co. 17 Blatchf.C.C. 24. The orator has recovered upon that decree some money, and has caused real estate to be set off on execution in satisfaction of the balance. Other persons claimed the real estate so set off, and resisted the taking of possession of it by the orator, and suits were brought by the orator against the several claimants of the land, in one of which the orator has recovered one parcel of the land by a final decree; and in another, the principal one, the orator has obtained a decree of this court establishing the validity of the title by the levy, from which an appeal has been taken to the supreme court. The defendants now move for a dissolution of the injunction restraining the use of the machines pending the litigation, and the cause has been heard upon this motion.

The defendants insist that the mere taking a decree for the profits of the sale was a ratification of the sale, and made it valid to pass the rights of the orator to everything covered by it belonging to the orator, the same as if it had been made by the orator. The orator claims that only actual beneficial...