133 Ga. 837 | Ga. | 1910
Charles D. Creswill and others made application to the superior court of Fulton county to be incorporated and made a body politic for the full period of twenty years, with the usual privilege of renewal at the expiration of said term, under the corporate name and style of the Grand Lodge Knights of Pythias of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, jurisdiction of Georgia. The petition set forth that the object of petitioners was not pecuniary gain, but was the social and benevolent benefit of its members and their dependent relatives. They asked to be allowed to organize and charter subordinate lodges in this State and to provide an endowment fund, etc. The defendants in error, the Grand Lodge Knights of Pythias of
Without going fully into the details of the plaintiffs’ petition it is sufficient to state that the following is alleged: The order of Knights of Pythias of which they were members was organized by Justus H. Bathbone in Washington, D. C., on February 19, 1864, and as a voluntary fraternal society adopted the name “Knights of Pythias,” and has since been in continuous existence throughout the United States, using the same name. The first Grand Lodge known as the Grand Lodge Knights of Pythias of the District of Columbia was organized in 1864. The Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania was organized in' 1867, and the Grand Lodge of New Jersey and the Grand Lodge of Maryland were each organized in 1868. These grand lodges organized the Supreme Grand Lodge Knights of Pythias for the United States on August 11, 1868. Since then the plan has been to organize and maintain subordinate lodges in the cities and towns throughout the United States and a grand lodge in each of the States and Territories of the United States, subject to and forming a part of the Supreme Lodge of the order from which subordinate lodges and grand lodges obtain authority and to which they owe allegiance. The first subordinate lodge in Georgia was organized in 1869, and the Grand Lodge of Georgia was organized 1871. The Supreme Lodge was incorporated under the laws of the United States in the District of Columbia, August 5, 1870; its articles of incorporation were amended under said laws,
The defendants by their answer neither affirmed nor denied the historical part of plaintiffs’ petition as above set forth. They denied that their order had sprung from the plaintiffs’ order, and that they had received any authority from plaintiffs’ order to organize lodges, and that their name is identical with the name of the plaintiffs’ order or is an imitation of the same. They set up, that the Supreme Lodge Knights of Pythias of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa was incorporated on October 10, 1889, by virtue of the act of Congress of the United States approved May 5, 1870, and organized under said charter lodges throughout the United States and other countries; that said corporation was reineorporated on the 14th of December, 1903, in order to more perfectly comply with the laws of the various States relative to fraternal societies doing business therein, which reincorporation was in the name last above mentioned, with the suffix “Australia;” that this corporation has been in active work ever since its organization in 1889; that the sole purpose of defendants in asking incorporation under the laws of Georgia is to form a more perfect union among the subordinate lodges, with a governing head which would have authority and be amenable to the laws of Georgia and be able to better enforce obedience among
The case came on for a hearing on the motion for preliminary injunction, upon substantially the- above record, when injunction was refused. The plaintiffs brought the case by bill of exceptions to this court. The judgment of the court below was by this court affirmed with direction. Grand Lodge Knights of Pythias v. Creswill, 128 Ga. 775 (58 S. E. 163). By reference to this decision it will be seen that all questions of law or fact on the final trial of the case, except as therein ruled, were left open to be then determined ; the only question settled being the point of want of proper parties plaintiff, which point it was held had been adjudicated in the court below, no exception to the ruling allowing amendments for this purpose having been taken.
The case coming on for trial in the court below, a verdict was rendered in favor of the plaintiffs against the defendants, and decree was entered as prayed for by the plaintiffs. The defendants moved for a new trial upon various grounds, which motion having been overruled, the case was again brought to this court for review. The original motion for a new trial and the amended motion contained forty grounds. The view we take of this case renders it unnecessary to discuss in detail the various grounds of the motion for a new trial, except those complaining that the verdict is contrary to the law and evidence and without evidence to support it. The record in the case is quite voluminous, but is made up largely of exhibits attached to the plaintiffs’ petition and the defendants’ •answer, each setting out copies of proceedings to incorporate and ■reincorporate under the various acts of Congress. Each side has -also put in the record certified copies of the constitution of the Supreme Lodges and the Grand Lodges and the statutes, declarations •of principles, and much statistical matter pertaining to each order.
Neither plaintiffs’ nor defendants’ order has ever been incorporated in the State of Georgia. Seniority in the selection of the name, seniority of organization under the name with its continued ■use, and seniority of incorporation under the general laws enacted by Congress and seniority of organization in Georgia are all in
It is conceded that the emblems publicly used by the defendants’ order are identical with those worn and used by the plaintiffs’ order, this fact being testified to by Creswill, one of the defendants. Some confusion has arisen in Georgia in the delivery of the mail of the plaintiffs’ order, but this confusion is not shown to any great extent. On one occasion a member of plaintiffs’ order, seeking the “K. P. Hall” of his own order, was'directed to the “K. P. Hall” of the defendants’ order. There is really very little if any material conflict of evidence between the parties. As above stated, the jury found in favor of the plaintiffs, this finding being: that the pro
The plaintiffs’ order, while primarily fraternal and benevolent, has certain property and business attributes and activities, including the acquiring and ownership of large amounts of property and the conducting of a department of insurance protection. Under the evidence, the element of injury is sufficiently shown. Moreover, as to the corporate plaintiff, the name of a corporation is in some degree analogous to a trade-mark. Clark on Corporations, 64. The finding of the jury in this case, that the use of the name of the plaintiffs’ order by the defendants was with fraudulent purpose and design, we think is supported by the evidence. It appears from the testimony that both the plaintiffs’ order and the defendants’ order took out articles of incorporation under a general act of Congress of May 5, 1870, which makes provision for a summary suing out of articles of incorporation by persons desiring to associate themselves together for any lawful purpose. 16 United States Statutes at Large, 101. It will be remembered that the plain
The Supreme Court of Tennessee has recently passed on a case similar to this one. In that ease Neil, L, says: “We are of the opinion that the injunction was properly awarded and made perpetual. While the complainant was not engaged in business for profit, in the sense of commerce and trade, yet it employed certain business activities for the purpose of maintaining itself and to propure funds to carry out the purposes of its organization, and it maintained certain business institutions, its club-houses, and its home for aged and invalid members. The name it had acquired and appropriated had become very valuable, in the nature of a trade-nameetc. Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks v. Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, 118 S. W. 389.
In a recent case of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks v. Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World, and the Grand Lodge of the same, in the Supreme Court
The court below properly submitted to the jury the question whether under the proof the plaintiffs had been guilty of such acquiescence or laches as would estop them, rightly holding that the burden was on the defendants to establish such acquiescence as would bar the plaintiffs’ right to have relief. As to burden of proof when fraud has been shown, see 18 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, 118, and cit. In South Carolina i't appeárs" that the plaintiff is not required in the first instance to prove his ignorance; the burden to show knowledge being on the defendant. Means v. Foster, 4 S. C. 249; Bank v. Dowling, 52 S. C. 345 (29 S. E. 788). Quoting from 18 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, 119, “There is no artificial, fixed, or determinate rule according to which the defense [of laches] is applied. By reason of the difference in the facts, no one case becomes an exact precedent for another. So each case as it arises must be decided according to its own particular circumstances, taking into consideration all the elements which affect the question.” “Though the lapse of a few years'may be sufficient to defeat the action in one case, a longer period may be held requisite in another, dependent upon the situation of the parties, the extent of their knowledge or means of information,” etc. “The cases all proceed upon the theory that laches is not, like limitation, a mere matter of time, but principally a question of the inequity of permitting the claim to be enforced — an inequity founded upon some change in the condition or relations of the property or the parties.” Citing authorities from numerous State courts and from United States courts. /
The general rule that laches will bar equitable relief seems to be qualified in trade-mark and trade-name cases,1 especially in the United States. “In England the rule is somewhat strictly applied that the proprietor of a trade-mark forfeits his right to relief against infringement by laches and acquiescence in the use of his mark by another.” “In the United States the rule is not so strictly applied, the general rule being that acquiescence or delay in asserting a trade-mark right against an infringer amounts only to a license at will, which can be terminated at any time by a suit for an injunction. If the title of the plaintiff is clear and the infringement plain, an injunction will be granted.” 28 Am. & Eng.
Judgment affirmed.