Vance v. AMERICAN SOCIETY OF COMPOSERS, ETC.

• Decision Date: 26 October 1959
• Docket Number: No. 16273.,16273.
• Citation: 271 F.2d 204
• Parties: Edward VANCE, Appellant, v. AMERICAN SOCIETY OF COMPOSERS, AUTHORS and PUBLISHERS (ASCAP), et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

271 F.2d 204 (1959)

Edward VANCE, Appellant, v. AMERICAN SOCIETY OF COMPOSERS, AUTHORS and PUBLISHERS (ASCAP), et al., Appellees.

No. 16273.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

October 26, 1959.

Edward Vance, pro se.

Maurice J. O'Sullivan, Kansas City, Mo., for appellees.

Before WOODROUGH and MATTHES, Circuit Judges, and MICKELSON, District Judge.

WOODROUGH, Circuit Judge.

Edward Vance, appellant herein, who lives in Missouri, claims that he is the author and composer of certain songs titled "Somebody Else is Taking My Place"; "The Honey Song (`Honey I'm in Love With You')"; "Some Day (You'll Want Me to Want You)", and that he wrote and composed them at different times prior to 1942. On and before that date the same songs had been published and copyright had been obtained for each, respectively, by one of the three New York publishing companies, Mainstreet Songs, Inc., Edwin H. Morris & Company, Inc., and Shapiro, Bernstein & Company, Inc., named as appellees herein and in their several registrations for copyright, the authorship of the songs was ascribed to persons other than Mr. Vance. The Statutory Certificates of Copyright Registration on the songs claimed by Vance but issued respectively to the three New York publishing companies have remained unrevoked approximately seventeen years and the songs have reached the public in the usual ways as sheet music, rolls, records and broadcasts licensed through the record proprietors of the copyrights. The original copyrights have also been expanded from time to time in favor of the same copyright proprietors to cover arrangements and additional, revised and new words and changes.

Ever since 1944 Mr. Vance has been trying to establish a right to the songs in court and to recover damages for the use that has been made of them under the copyright by others, but all actions he has brought have been dismissed without joinder of issue on the merits and without trial or determination of his claim of authorship. He is not a lawyer and has himself prepared the complaints he has lodged, undertaken to cause issuance and service of process in the actions and made his own oral and briefed arguments to the many judges on whose dockets his cases have appeared. All of the federal district judges who have considered his pleadings and contentions have reached the same conclusions that was expressed by Judge Sugarman in 1953 in Vance v. American Society of Composers, Authors, & Publishers, D.C., 14 F.R.D. 30, 31:

"Full opportunity has been given plaintiff to set forth his claims, whatever they may be. He has ignored the court\'s offer to supply, or its advice that he retain competent counsel.

"The time has come when this court must assert its indisposition to be further imposed upon by this plaintiff\'s refusal to retain or accept competent counsel.

"The motions to dismiss the complaint for failure to comply with F. R.Civ.P. rule 8(e), 28 U.S.C. are granted with prejudice and without leave to plead over."

Up until 1958 Mr. Vance always sought to make out a case and obtain recovery as the owner of common law rights in the songs but in an action he brought in that year in the Western District of Missouri he showed that he himself had made registry of the songs during that year and claimed to be the proprietor of copyrights on them as unpublished songs written and composed by him. That case was on Chief Judge Duncan's docket and in June of 1958 Judge Duncan entered an order declaring that "Lack of venue in this Court disposes of the plaintiff's action * * *" and that case was dismissed in 1958 without joinder of issues.

Mr. Vance brought the present action on January 26, 1959, and it also culminated in the entry of a final order of dismissal by Judge Smith at Kansas City on May 6, 1959, as follows:

"Memorandum and Order

(Filed May 6, 1959)

"Plaintiff has instituted this suit against the defendants above named seeking damages for alleged infringement of plaintiff\'s copyrights, illegal use of `illegal copyrights\' and other matters.

"This is one of eighteen various proceedings filed by plaintiff over a period of some fifteen years, in this Court, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, and in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.¹ The last proceeding, so far as our records indicate, was terminated June 11, 1958, by Chief Judge Duncan of this Court in Case No. 11726. Although from time to time various defendants have been named in the cases, certain of them have been named consistently in all of them; and all of them involve substantially the same subject and the same claims. This one involves as an additional element the claim that in February, 1958, plaintiff himself obtained copyright registration of the four songs which form the basis of this action, although his own pleadings and exhibits show that they were copyrighted by others many years ago.

"Without exception these various proceedings have been dismissed. Some have been dismissed for failure to comply with Rule 8, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, as this one most certainly could be. Some have been dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because of improper venue as to certain of the defendants, as this one well could be. Others have been dismissed on the ground that they fail to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. All of them stem from the same basic charge of alleged use of alleged illegal copyrights.

"But at this time there are before me for consideration various motions to quash returns of service, separate pleas to the venue, and motions to dismiss as to certain named defendants. There is a wealth of material in the way of research, documents, decisions and rulings sufficient to eliminate the necessity for further extensive review of the background of this case. It is apparent that the complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted; and this Court, therefore, lacks jurisdiction of the subject matter here. For these reasons plaintiff\'s complaint is dismissed without leave to file an amended complaint.

"It is so Ordered."

Mr. Vance moved to vacate the Order and to "correct mistakes made by the court due to misapprehension of the issues and misappropriation of the law appliable sic to the issues." His motion was overruled.

He has taken the present appeal to obtain a reversal of the dismissal and as in all former cases he has conducted the proceedings in this Court himself. He made his own oral argument at the bar and in the allotted time failed to clearly apprise the Court of the causes of action intended to be pleaded in his complaint. As shown by the record, Mr. Vance lodged with the clerk of the district court along with his complaint a large number (between 95 and 125) of "exhibits" inserted loosely into two large envelopes declared generally in the complaint to be "made part of the complaint * * * which must be gone into by this court." Particular "exhibits" were not connected with specific allegations of the complaint and it results that the purport and intent of the complaint must be sought in the "exhibits" and is not shown by simple, concise, and direct allegations contained in it. His oral argument was mainly directed to "exhibits" which he drew from the envelopes. It follows that this complaint, like that considered by Judge Sugarman and quoted from above, utterly fails to comply with Rule 8, F.R.C.P. It was attacked on that ground before Judge Smith and his conclusion that the complaint could certainly be dismissed for failure to comply with that Rule is fully justified.

The complaint lumps all the nineteen defendants together in its charge that they had wrongfully collected six million dollars from plaintiff's songs and it demands judgment against all for a million and one half. However anxious the courts are to decide the claims of every litigant on the merits, no defendant can justly be subjected to the maintenance in court of such demands for vast sums of money against him unless the demands are presented in the orderly way the rules require....