185 A.D. 399 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1918
The gravamen of the complaint is that the Republic Chemical Company, Inc., appropriated a secret process of chlorine detinning which the plaintiff, the Vulcan Detinning Company, had successfully developed after years of effort and by the expenditure of large sums of money; that the Republic Company substantially duplicated the complicated and novel installation which the plaintiff had devised for the practical working of the process; that it procured and used plaintiff’s trade secrets, especially its list of customers from whom it purchased tin scrap, and the knowledge which it obtained, by
The foundation of the casé is Kern’s breach of trust and his confederating with the defendant Franz A. Assmann, while still in plaintiff’s employ, to establish the Republic Company in the chlorine detinning business as a rival of plaintiff and enable it to compete with the plaintiff in the business of chlorine detinning by the use of a certain alleged secret process in combination with devices and methods discovered, tested out and proved by experiment to be necessary in order to detin successfully upon a commercial scale.
As might be expected, the evidence to establish Kern’s breach of trust is in large part circumstantial. This was stressed somewhat by the learned trial justice, who said: “ In determining the weight to be given to the circumstantial evidence where it is sought to establish the fraudulent act by that sort of proof, the court will follow the well established rule referred to in the case of Lopez v. Campbell (163 N. Y. 340, at p. 347): ‘ Where the evidence is capable of an interpretation which makes it equally consistent with the absence as with the presence of a wrongful act, that meaning must be ascribed to it which accords with its absence.’ ” This presumption against fraud loses much of its force when it is discovered that the parties sought to be charged have been guilty of similar frauds. Therefore, it will help to ascertain at the start whether Kern and Assmann were the kind of men who would stoop to suclTmisconduet as is charged. The answer is readily found in the very able opinion of Judge Garrison in Vulcan Detinning Company v. American Can Co. (72 N. J. Eq. 387), an opinion well worth careful study, not merely for its bearing upon the point just referred to, but for its illuminating discussion of the principles applicable
Kern’s relation to the plaintiff, from the time of its organization until he sold his stock and left the employment of the plaintiff in September 1912, was a dominating one. He was not only its vice-president and general manager but was a director and a member of the executive committee, and' during a part of the time was also .its treasurer and assistant secretary. He received a large salary, which, with Christmas donations, amounted to about $25,000 a year. The record makes it clear that he was in touch with and practically familiar with every detail of plaintiff’s process and business, and that his judgment guided the company. Kern was under contract with plaintiff as general manager and under his original contract of April 23, 1898,' which was renewed yearly, he was compelled to abstain for a period of fifty years from manufacturing and dealing in tin scrap and from any connection with or interest in the tin scrap business. On March 25, 1909, Kern, by refusing to renew his contract otherwise, procured the plaintiff’s board of directors to release him from the abstention clause of the contract. Coincident therewith Kern reported that he was investigating the subject of chlorine detinning. The complaint charges, and it is argued, that this change in his contract was the first step in a plan that he had then formed to develop the chlorine process at plaintiff’s expense, and, when it was a success, set up the process with a rival company. This is surmise and the conclusion has no substantial basis. Kern had no means whatever of knowing early in 1909 that the chlorine process could be successfully developed. In releasing Kern from the abstention clause, however, plaintiff was careful to provide that the release “ does not in any manner permit them [Adolph Kern and his
Prior to the year 1909 plaintiff had been engaged in detinning scrap by the electrolytic process. This was operated by inserting a quantity of tin scrap, packed in perforated steel baskets, into a bath of alkali, usually caustic soda, and applying a current of electricity to the bath by which operation the tin on the tin plate was oxidized, separated from the tin plate and deposited against the cathods used in the process. The products were detinned scrap and an impure tin oxide in the shape of a powder called tin powder.
Chlorine detinning is the method which is involved in this action. Instead of obtaining tin oxide, this process produces •tetrachloride of tin and detinned steel scrap. Tetrachloride of tin is used by manufacturers of silk for the purpose of weighting it. Its value is much greater than tin oxide.
Prior to 1909 Kern had learned that the Goldschmidts, in Essen, Germany, had replaced their equipment for electrolytic detinning with chlorine apparatus, and in 1909 he learned that they intended to build and operate a chlorine detinning plant in the United States. The Goldschmidts, operating under their own patents, made a great success of their process and solved a problem which chemists had been working on for fifty years without success.
On May 27, 1909, Kern reported these facts to plaintiff’s board of directors with his opinion “ that it is absolutely necessary for this company to install chlorine detinning to enable it to successfully compete with the Goldschmidt Detinning Company after the same begins operations.” Kern was authorized to investigate chlorine detinning and patents and to employ a chemist familiar with chlorine. On July 26, 1909, C. F. Carrier, Jr., was engaged as chemist for one year from August 1, 1909. His contract vested all his inventions in the Vulcan Company and he was specifically employed
By October 20, 1909, Carrier began to report on his experiments, and for more than two years thereafter worked indefatigably in bringing his experiments to a successful issue. The record is replete with letters, reports and conferences passing between Carrier and Kern, giving a vivid and minute description of the innumerable difficulties encountered, and describing the experiments and improvements that finally ended in a successful, workable, commercial process. Kern was in touch with every step, frequently made important
Chlorine detinning, i. e., the separation by chlorine of tin plate scrap into its component parts and recovering its steel or iron for remelting and its tin as a chloride, is based- upon the facts, known for more than half a century as shown by numerous patents, that dry chlorine will remove tin from iron and that at a low temperature dry chlorine does not combine with iron. The inherent difficulties in chlorine detinning arise from the dual nature of tin* scrap, the intimate contract between its constituent parts, its finely divided form, the relatively large surface thus exposed, the chemical affinity which chlorine has for both tin and iron and the heat created by the reaction of tin with chlorine. While chlorine will react freely with tin at lower temperatures than that at which fit combines with iron, the heat of formation of stannic chloride is intense, and unless quickly carried away from the surfaces of the tin scrap, the chlorine will combine with and set fire to the iron, defeating the very object of detinning. To- strip tin from tin plate without reaching the danger point of burning the iron was what proved to be, up to the advent of the Goldschmidts, an insuperable difficulty in the production of anhydrous tetra by chlorine detinning on a commercial scale. Thus temperature control was the basic element of the problem.
The Goldschmidts solved the problem by compressing the scrap into compact billets and subjecting these billets in a closed vessel to the action of chlorine and varying the pressure in the vessel during the detinning. This patent closed the field to any one who achieved the result by compressing the scrap into billets. The problem was, therefore, to get the same result without resorting to the device of compressing the scrap into small bundles or billets before subjecting it to the gas. Patents were issued for such a process in 1907 and 1909 to Franz Von Kugelgen and George O. Seward who had established a purely experimental plant at Holcombs Rock, Va., and with these patents we are concerned. By application filed January 16, 1904, patent No. 915,029 was issued March 9, 1909. In patent No. 915,029 they set forth their invention in five claims, which constituted little more
A patentable invention must disclose the manner or process by which the end is accomplished. (O’Reilly v. Morse, 15 How. [U. S.] 62.) But we are not concerned with and have no right to pass upon, the validity of these patents. They have been duly issued and so far as this court is concerned the Von Kugelgen and Seward patent No. 915,029 establishes as their invention and protects them and their licensees in the process of recovering tin from tin scrap “ by treating the latter in a closed vessel with dry chlorin to form stannic chlorid, maintaining the temperature sufficiently high to effect complete detinning and controlling the temperature to keep it below that at which the iron is attacked.”
Obviously, therefore, Carrier’s problem was a difficult and apparently an impossible one. Temperature control was the basic element of any successful chlorine detinning, yet any device for controlling the temperature to effect detinning would fall within the Seward temperature control patents.
How this difficulty was surmounted is not precisely stated by any witness or clearly shown by any exhibit. It is quite apparent, however, how plaintiff and its experts believed that they had gotten around the difficulty. It appears that they arrived at the opinion and belief, fortified by the opinion of plaintiff’s patent solicitors Briesen & Knauth, that, so long as there were no “ special devices for regulating temperatures in the apparatus, or peculiar additions of gases, for instance, stannic chloride vapors,” there would be no infringement of these temperature control patents. In other words, if the plaintiff discovered that the mere relation of the rate of flow of chlorine to the size of the charge of scrap to be detinned in a given period of time produced complete detinning without burning the iron, the temperature would be shown to be under control, but entirely without any device for maintaining or regulating it. Upon this basis Carrier proceeded.
The second serious element in the problem was to devise a plant that would detin successfully on a commercial basis.
On April 21, 1910, Carrier reported: “ The chlorine detinning will be ready to go ahead now in a very short time. I believe we now have all the necessary data but we have not had enough perfectly clean runs to give you the confidence which is essential to strike out into the new field. * * * The last experiment gave excellent results and the temperature was under perfect control.” On April 29, 1910, Carrier wrote of experiment No. 18: “The scrap came out in beautiful condition.” On October 4, 1910, Kern wrote Carrier to start up the plant and to continue to run it “ as I desire to demonstrate whether the operation of a plant on a larger scale can be expected to be continuous and without drawbacks.” On October 27, 1910, Carrier reported: “ It seems to me that we have all the information necessary for proceeding to a consideration of plans for the future * * *. I trust you will permit me to go ahead with the estimates and specifications.” On November 18, 1910, Carrier wrote: “ I will continue the preparation of the drawings and specifications as you suggest in order to have them ready when needed.” Carrier had now achieved an excellent measure of success with his experimental plant and the plaintiff was face to face with deciding whether to construct a big commercial plant along the lines of the process worked out by Carrier. It determined to go ahead, and on January 16, 1911, Whipple, who had done considerable investigation and other work for the plaintiff connected with the enterprise, was engaged “in a consulting and advisory capacity for chemical and engineering work and in relation to patents for two years.” On February 28, 1911, Carrier rendered to the plaintiff a special report on the process
Notwithstanding the belief of plaintiff, its experts and patent solicitors that so long as the Vulcan Company did not control temperature by active means or devices its process was not an infringement upon the Seward patents, it was recognized that its process was subject to attack in the courts. Accordingly, plaintiff had long under consideration the matter of acquiring the Seward patents. The matter was initiated as early as April 26, 1910, when Seward wrote to Kern. Nothing was done about the matter for some time. One reason was that the Goldschmidt Detinning Company was prosecuting in the Patent Office a claim that the Seward patents interfered with its process, a proceeding which was subsequently decided in favor of Seward and Von Kugelgen. Thereupon the plaintiff sent Whipple to Holcomb Rock, where he was permitted to inspect Von Kugelgen and Seward’s experimental plant. On April 23, 1911, plaintiff received a letter from its patent solicitors, which concluded: “An alliance with the Goldschmidt interests is the obvious solution of all problems which confront you. If you can bring this alliance about by acquiring the Kugelgen patents for a reasonable figure, that would seem to be worth doing. The aequisi-
To make this situation clearer, it should be stated that on April 22, 1909, Von Kugelgen and Seward had filed another application for a patent which was finally issued to them on February 10, 1914, No. 1,086,921. This was a patent for what is known as an operation in “ series ” and involved a material advance upon their other applications. In examining this patent, it appears that for the first time they disclosed in very considerable detail the methods by which they claimed to maintain and control the temperature and the various steps in the process. After referring to their process as set forth in patent No. 915,029, and stating that “ The process is preferably practiced in a manner set forth in Letters Patent No. 853,461, granted May 14, 1907,” they state:
“ According to our present invention we render the process practically continuous by employing a series of tanks or vessels which are connected to form a circuit and are operated in succession. The operation is divided up into suitable units of time; say for example of one hour or more each, depending upon the size of the tanks, the amount of tin scrap therein, the strength of the chlorin, and the rate of flow of the chlorin. During each time-unit one of the tanks will ordinarily be cut out of the series, being opened for the removal of the iron scrap
*411 and the recharging with tin scrap to be detinned. The remaining tanks are so connected that air is being admitted to the one which has been longest charged and the scrap in which has been completely detinned; the next tank in the series receives fresh dry chlorin gas together with the air passing from the preceding tank and carrying the chlorin which it has displaced therefrom; in each successive tank the mixture of chlorin and air encounters a fresher or newer charge of tin scrap with the tin on which the chlorin combines to form stannic chlorid, until in the last tank of the series the chlorin has all or practically all been removed from the air, whereupon the air which remains is drawn out by any suitable suction device such as a pump or ejector.”
The significance of this becomes apparent when one carefully reads Carrier’s report on the Vulcan three-cycle process which he had devised, embodied in Exhibit D-83. From this exhibit it appears that Carrier, working independently and, so far as the evidence shows, without any knowledge whatever of the Seward series process application, had evolved a process of operation in series, employing a method which seems, (of course it is not for us to decide) to be such an improvement upon and so different from the single cylinder process involved in other patents as to constitute a real invention. Pointing out in his report that if a process were devised in which a temperature “ high enough to produce the reaction between dry chlorine and iron does not exist, or cannot be attained,” no temperature control, water cooling or other device for temperature control would be necessary, Carrier says: “ It will now be shown that in the Vulcan process as described, it will be utterly impossible to ever raise the temperature to the point where the chlorine would begin to attack the iron.”
It appears that Carrier relied strongly in obtaining his results upon operating a number of cylinders in series, so connected by piping that chlorine gas could be admitted from any one cylinder to any other of a series of six, and each one having a gas outlet into a common pipe, running over them all and through a pressure apparatus, from which pressure apparatus the gas which had passed through and escaped from the various cylinders might by a further system of piping be
Now it appears that Carrier had filed an application for a patent. It also appears that applications of Carrier’s were in interference with Von Kugelgen and Seward applications, and that Carrier failed to get a patent. For some reason this enormous record, containing hundreds of pages of irrelevant testimony, does not contain the Carrier applications and does not disclose definitely which claims of Von Kugelgen and Seward were in interference with Carrier’s applications. It is maintained on behalf of the plaintiff that the Carrier application, which was in interference with Von Kugelgen and Seward and decided in favor of the latter, was not the series process embodied in Exhibit D-83 (Carrier’s report on the Vulcan process). The object of this is to show that the Vulcan process, as put into operation, does not embody the invention covered by any one of the three Von Kugelgen and Seward patents, for, as will later appear, the Republic Company acquired and operates under Von Kugelgen and Seward patents. Accordingly, if it appeared that the Patent Office had decided that Carrier’s process, embodied in Exhibit D-83, and as described in his application for a patent, interfered with Von Kugelgen and Seward’s application which resulted in the issue of patent No. 1,086,921, it would be persuasive evidence that both the Vulcan Company and the Republic Company were using processes which, if not identical, were both within the allowed claims of the Von Kugelgen and Seward patents.
I think that the evidence strongly tends to show that this was the case. The only pending application that Von Kugelgen and Seward had,. so far as the evidence shows,
This evidence satisfies me that there is no basis for plaintiff’s claim that Kern, intending from the start, if the process
Whether the plaintiff’s process infringed the Von Kugelgen and Seward patents it is not for us to decide. We are merely concerned; on this branch of the case, with -the question whether or not the processes are so similar in principle as to support a finding, not in a patent infringement suit but in an unfair competition suit such as this, that they are both covered by the same patented process. It is to be remembered that one of the charges is that. the Republic Company, through Kern’s betrayal of trust, acquired the plaintiff’s process. If, however, the two processes are covered- by the same patent, and the Republic Company owns the patent, it is not contended that the Republic Company be enjoined from using a process covered by its own patent, even if it was led to acquire the patent by disclosures wrongfully made to it by Kern. While this discussion of the significance of plaintiff’s acquiring a license under the Von Kugelgen and Seward patents has thus involved a considerable survey of
We now have before us the situation as existing in the middle of November, 1911, when it was apparent that the plaintiff had succeeded in devising a process for chlorine detinning on a large commercial scale as' a result of these long and very expensive experiments, and had fortified itself against attack by taking out a license under the only patents that it feared. It was at this time and under these circumstances that Kern set out to undermine the plaintiff and •build up a rival, employing the knowledge that he had obtained through the plaintiff’s experimentation.
There now followed a course of conduct on the part of Kern, in association with Franz A. Assmann, which, for disloyalty to Kern’s employer and betrayal of trust, is even more aggravated than the somewhat parallel proceedings disclosed in the case of Vulcan Detinning Company v. American Can Co. (supra). Between November 11,1911, and November 17, 1911, when Kern undoubtedly had reached the well-warranted conclusion that the Vulcan Company’s process was a success and that it was closely identified with, if not controlled, by the Seward and Von Kugelgen patents, Kern met Seward and obtained for himself an option on the Von Kugelgen and Seward patents for ten per cent of the stock of any company that might be formed. They discussed the probable cost of installation, $160,000 to $170,000; working capital, $70,000 or $80,000 — to cover which $250,000 in cash would be contributed. How much earlier Kern sought out Assmann does not appear, but it does appear that he went to Assmann to enlist him in establishing a chlorine detinning company, and between November 12 and November 17, 1911, told Assmann that the Von Kugelgen and Seward patents were in the market; that it was to the interest of Assmann and the Continental Can Company (with which Assmann was connected) to buy these patents and start a detinning plant; that he intended to sever his connection with the Vulcan Company; that the owners of the patents would have to be paid forty-nine per
On January 19,1912, Kern instituted a vigorous campaign to buy up tin scrap for the Republic Company while working for the Vulcan Company, and on that day wrote from the office of L. A. Norton, 25 Broad street, to the treasurer of the Mohawk Condensed Milk Company, inclosing a contract for tin scrap “ such as we propose to make with you ” for ten years from January 1, 1913. He took the precaution to tell him, in writing to him, to address him at Norton’s office. Mohawk
It is not feasible in this opinion to outline the details of the simultaneous activities of Kern for his employer audits rival. Suffice it to say that the plaintiff’s plans were completed as early as March 28, 1912, and the defendant’s plans were not begun until March 25, 1912. The striking fact is not alone the similarity in the plans and installation, but that the Republic Company was able without any experimentation to decide at once on every essential feature of its plant, turn out the plans for them and let contracts within a few weeks of the letting of the Vulcan Company contracts. There is no explanation of this, and there can be none except that Kern turned over to the Republic Company full information concerning the plans, installation and process of his employer. For example, take so fundamental a matter as the huge horizontal cylinders in which the detinning was to be done. No one had ever attempted to employ such means for commercial detinning. The Goldschmidt cylinders were vertical and necessarily much smaller. All of the Von Kugelgen and Seward patents showed vertical cylinders. These great horizontal cylinders, which in the Vulcan Company plant were seventy-seven feet long and In the Republic plant sixty-four feet long, not only gave great capacity, but simplified and speeded up operation by enabling tracks to be laid into them on which the heavy baskets of scrap weighing several tons coupled together like cars in a train could be run in and out, and also facilitated the system of piping and circulation of gas; yet the Vulcan Company’s cylinder
Neither is this a case where one after leaving his employer uses for the benefit of a new employer knowledge acquired by him during his previous employment. As was said by Scott, J., in Peerless Pattern Co. v. Pictorial Review Co. (147 App. Div. 715, 717): “ All that clearly appears is that he undertook to use in his new employment the knowledge he had acquired in the old. This, if it involves no breach of confidence, is not unlawful, for equity has no power to compel a man who changes employers to wipe clean the slate of his memory.” But here was Kern, while still in the employ of the plaintiff, concealing his relation to the Republic Company, deceiving his employer into believing that he was devoting his best efforts to its own interests, and yet at that very time deciding for the Republic Company what installation it should put in and always deciding in favor of the methods shown by plaintiff’s experiments to be the most feasible. After leaving plaintiff’s employment, possibly Kern might have advised a new employer that as a result of his experience the Warner cell system, in combination with the brine supply and Zaremba evaporator system used by the plaintiff, was the most useful and perhaps the only feasible method of making this process a success; but while he was employed by the plaintiff, the plaintiff alone was entitled to that information. As was said by the Supreme Court of the United States in Board of Trade v. Christie Grain & Stock Co. (198 U. S. 236): “ The plaintiff has the right to keep the work which it has done, or paid for doing, to itself. The fact that others might do similar work, if they might, does not authorize them to steal the plaintiff’s. * *. * The plaintiff does not lose its rights by communicating the result to persons, even if many, in confidential relations to itself, under a contract not to make it public, and strangers to the trust will be restrained from getting at the knowledge by inducing a breach of trust and using knowledge obtained by such a breach.” (See, also, F. W. Dodge Co. v. Construction Information Co., 183 Mass. 62.) In this case, while Kern did not himself sign a secrecy contract, he required every one else to, and the evidence leaves no
Considering the process as separate from plaintiff’s method of installation, a different situation is presented. Assuming, as we must, that the Von Kugelgen and Seward patents are valid, I am satisfied that the Special Term was entirely correct in deciding that, at the time when Kern left the employ of the plaintiff, the only chlorine detinning process which the plaintiff intended to use was a process which, at least in so far as the essential feature of temperature control was concerned, was covered by the Seward and Von Kugelgen patents and that the Republic Company in the operation of its plant uses a process covered by the same patents. It does not necessarily follow therefrom that the two processes are identical. Indeed, obscure as is much of the testimony on this important branch of the case, resulting from plaintiff’s unwillingness to furnish a comprehensive description of its process, it is clear that there are differences in piping arrangement, involving important differences in the method of circulation of gas through the several cylinders, as a result of which the Vulcan, while operating a single cylinder or a pair of cylinders as a unit, is unable at the same time to operate the remaining cylinders as units either singly or in pairs, whereas the Republic cylinders, while connected in series, may all be operated at the same time as units. But, as has been pointed out, the fundamental principle of the process, apart from the methods of installation, however important they are, consists in temperature control. The plaintiff stoutly maintains, and its counsel ingeniously argues, that it does not maintain temperature control by any device or method which brings the process
There is one final feature of this case that requires consideration and that is the defendants’ contention that the plaintiff is in any event disentitled to equitable relief because it has not come into court with clean hands. This is based upon the fact that the plaintiff, before filing the complaint, introduced a spy into the Republic Company’s plant and thereafter certain changes were made in plaintiff’s plant. Eldridge, an employee of the plaintiff, according to Buttfield, had told the latter that he had seen thermometers on the Republic’s cylinders. (Eldridge testified to the contrary.) Thereafter the plaintiff substituted thermometers for thermocouples which had previously been used. Eldridge had seen the Republic Company’s piping; after June, 1913, plaintiff made some- changes in its piping and valves. The Republic Company, in addition to one fan on each cylinder to handle gases, had two additional fans, one of which was used to draw or push the stannic chloride fumes out of the cylinder; sometime after Eldridge’s visit, the plaintiff added two blowers to its system, in addition to another required to serve an added cylinder. Eldridge admitted that, suggested by what he saw and reported, the plaintiff installed a device used for 'compressing scrap into baskets to be inserted into the cylinders.
While the sending of a spy into the Republic Company’s works was entirely improper, it must be borne in mind that the plaintiff had good reason to know that the Republic Company had largely copied its installation from information divulged by plaintiff’s employee Kern. It was necessary to establish this upon the trial, and the sending of a spy into the works for this purpose, and not for the purpose of copying the Republic Company’s devices, was not such conduct as would warrant denying relief to the plaintiff. The only real appropriation of any idea established was the use of a box filled with iron to pack scrap. Originally the Republic Company’s workmen stamped the scrap down with their feet; afterwards it used a concrete block. Eldridge got the idea,
The plaintiff has asked that, if the judgment be reversed, this court shall grant appropriate relief, based upon findings to be made, without ordering a new trial, although the defendant has not put in its case excepting in so far as it developed upon the cross-examination. Plaintiff bases this upon the claim that defendants by asking for a dismissal on the merits at the close of plaintiff’s case submitted the whole case to the court for a decision on the merits. (Deeley v. Heintz, 169 N. Y. 129, 133.) But I do not think we are warranted in applying any such rule in this case. The defendants cannot be said, under the circumstances of this case, to have submitted the case for final decision against them on the merits in the event that their motion was denied. That was not the understanding of the court when the motion was taken under advisement.- The matter was discussed between counsel and the court at some length and the court stated: “ The procedure will be this: If I deny the motion to dismiss the complaint, then the case will still be on for the defendants to put in t íeir proof.” Under these circumstances, I do not think it would be proper to grant judgment against the defendants in this court without any opportunity on the part of the defendants to develop their defense by means other than by cross-examination of plaintiff’s witnesses. It is true that the defendants’ case appears to have been very fully developed, owing to the fact that plaintiff relied upon calling the very witnesses on whom the defendants would naturally rely, but the interests of justice will be better served by ordering a new trial.
The action was discontinued before trial as against the Tin Products Company and Dorris Whipple. Accordingly, the judgment appealed from as to the defendants Fred M. Assmann, F. P. Assmann and George O. Seward should be affirmed, with costs, and as to the other defendants it should be reversed and a new trial ordered, with costs to appellant to abide the event.
Clarke, P. J., Laughlin, Dowling and Smith, JJ., concurred.
Judgment as to defendants Fred M. Assmann, F. P. Assmann and George 0. Seward affirmed, with costs; as to other defendants, judgment reversed and new trial ordered, with costs to appellant to abide event. Order to be settled on notice.