Stumpf v. A. Schreiber Brewing Co.

• Decision Date: 05 May 1917
• Docket Number: 160-B.
• Citation: 242 F. 80
• Parties: STUMPF v. A. SCHREIBER BREWING CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of New York

242 F. 80

STUMPF v. A. SCHREIBER BREWING CO.

No. 160-B.

United States District Court, W.D. New York.

May 5, 1917

Philipp Sawyer, Rice & Kennedy, of New York City (Cleon J. Sawyer and J. J. kennedy, both of New York City, of counsel), for plaintiff.

William Macomber, of Buffalo, N.Y. (George E. Tew, of Washington D.C., of counsel), for defendant.

HAZEL District Judge.

The complainant herein, Johann Stumpf, resides in Berlin Germany, and is a subject of the emperor of Germany. On March 3, 1913, he executed a power of attorney in writing to Edward N. Trump, a citizen of the United States, authorizing and empowering him to bring and conduct this action for infringement of United States letters patent No. 1,042,168 against the defendant corporation, a citizen of the United States residing at Buffalo, N.Y. Neither the power of attorney nor the prior agreement of November 15, 1912 between Stumpf and Trump, read on this motion, conveys any interest, title, or ownership of the Stumpf patent in suit, but merely comprehensively imparts the right to grant licenses for the manufacture, sale, and use in the United States, Canada, and Mexico of uniflow engines, embodying the patented improvements and including accessories, for which he or his assigns, the Stumpf Uniflow Engine Company, was to receive for services as sales agent one-half of the total amount received from licenses and royalties, the remaining one-half to be paid to Stumpf until he had received one-half of the expense of bringing the patents to issue in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The sales agency was to be irrevocable during the life of the patent. This suit was instituted by Stumpf in his own name, and the action was decided in his favor; the decision being announced prior to April 6, 1917, the date of the proclamation of the President declaring the existence of a legal war between the United States of America and the Imperial German Government. No decree has as yet been signed or entered.

The general rule of the common law of England is that an action is not maintainable during the continuance of a war by or on behalf of an alien enemy without the permission of a statute, proclamation, letters of safe conduct, or license from the king. This rule was rigidly followed for centuries before the War of 1812 between the United States and England. A few exceptions to this rule were later recognized and applied by the courts of England, as, for instance, where commerce was continued among the nations at war, or where the plaintiff in actions for debt became an alien enemy after verdict and judgment. In such cases, contracts and suits at law based upon them were permitted by international law, as distinguished from the common law, and the sole inquiry was whether the plaintiff was persona standi in judicio, and, if he was, according to the broad doctrine of Bynkershoek, the courts were open to him to redress his grievances.

In Crawford v. The William Penn, Fed. Cas. 3,372 Circuit Justice Washington in the year 1815 approved the strict rule of the commonlaw courts of England, and the syllabus states that an alien enemy, if beneficially interested in the suit, could not maintain it even by his trustee, who was not an alien. In Mumford v. Mumford, Fed. Cas. 9,918, decided in 1812, it was broadly held in a suit in equity that the complainant, a subject of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, had become an alien enemy resident within the realm since the suit was begun, and that therefore the courts of this country were not open to him. In Hangar v. Abbott, 6 Wall. 532, 18 L.Ed. 939, an action brought after the Civil War on a debt, the defendant pleaded the statute of limitations, and the question arose whether the statute of limitations was suspended during the time the...