Wireless Specialty Apparatus Co. v. Priess

• Decision Date: 15 September 1923
• Citation: 246 Mass. 274,140 N.E. 793
• Parties: WIRELESS SPECIALTY APPARATUS CO. v. PRIESS.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

246 Mass. 274

140 N.E. 793

WIRELESS SPECIALTY APPARATUS CO.

v.PRIESS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Sept. 15, 1923.

Report from Superior Court, Suffolk County; John D. McLaughlin, Judge.

Suit by the Wireless Specialty Apparatus Company against William H. Priess, for injunction, requiring assignment of rights in patent application and in inventions thereby covered, and restraining disclosure of information concerning plaintiff's business processes, etc. Reported from the superior court after a ruling that a petition to punish defendant for contempt should be dismissed. Case remanded for further consideration.

The trial court found that defendant had actual knowledge of the temporary restraining order he was charged with violating, but ruled that it had been dissolved by operation of law, and had ceased to be effective before the petition for adjudication of contempt was filed, and that he therefore had no power to punish defendant for contempt. The report stated that, if such rulings were correct, the petition was to be dismissed, but, if they were not correct, and defendant was liable to be punished for contempt, and if the court erred in considering a certain conversation in arriving at its findings, then the case was to be remanded for further hearing, and that otherwise such order was to be made as was proper.

R. G. Dodge and L. Curtis, 2d, both of Boston, for plaintiff.

Tyler, Tucker, Eames & Wright, of Boston, for defendant.

RUGG, C. J.

This case comes before us on report by a judge of the superior court.

1. The first question presented relates to the power of the court to deal with a petition for adjudication of contempt for violation of an injunction. A suit in equity was filed by the plaintiff against the defendant in our superior court. On September 12, 1922, a restraining order was issued enjoining the defendant from disclosing the contents of a certain patent application and from assigning or disposing of or granting any rights of any nature whatsoever under said application for the invention described therein or the patent or patents to issue thereon. This order was issued ex parte, and the precept containing the subpoena, notice and restraining order was served on the day on which it was issued by leaving an attested copy at the defendant's last and usual place of abode in Belmont in this commonwealth. No personal service was ever made. On the next day, September 13th, in the city of New York, the defendant executed and delivered to the DeForest Radio Telephone & Telegraph Company a nonexclusive license to manufacture under said patent application, and under the invention to which said application relates and under any patent which might issue on said application. No contention was made but that this license was within the terms of the restraining order. The judge found as a fact that before the execution of the license the defendant had actual knowledge that the order restraining such an act had been issued. The temporary restraining order was granted without notice, and, as has been said, notice of the application for a preliminary injunction was made returnable on September [246 Mass. 277]20, 1922. On that day, it appears from the papers that the parties agreed that the restraining order should continue in force until October 20th, and from then until November 3d there were several continuances from time to time under similar agreements. On October 30th an interlocutory decree was entered ordering the pleadings to be completed on or before November 10, 1922, and the case to be then referred to a master, and on the 3d of November, 1922, the day to which its was finally continued, or on which it should have come up for hearing if the course prescribed by the statute had been followed, the plaintiff, Wireless Specialty Apparatus Company, failed to apply for such an injunction, and none was issued then or thereafter. The present petition that the defendant be adjudged in contempt was filed on November 23, 1922.

It is assumed in favor of the defendant, without pausing to discuss or decide the point, that the restraining order expired on November 3, 1922, G. L. c. 214, § 9.

The purpose of this proceeding for contempt is to maintain the authority of the court. It is not for a defendant to flout the processes of the court according to his own conception of his rights. It is not for him to decide whether the restraining order was valid, or not. Law and order can be maintained only by obedience to the mandate of the court. The courts of this commonwealth are always...