29 F. Cas. 1372 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Northern New York | 1872
The form of the interlocutory decree in this case warranted the commissioner in reporting both the profits made by the defendants, by infringing the patent of the complainant, and also the damages (over and above, or beyond the amount of, those profits) sustained by the complainant, as allowed in actions brought after the passage of the act of July 8, 1870 (16 Stat. 206, 216, §§ 55, 111). Whether any language can be found in the opinion of the court, delivered after the hearing of the cause on pleadings and proofs, that seemed to warrant such an interlocutory decree, I am not able, from recollection, to say; but it is quite certain, that the court did not intend to decide, that, in a suit brought in equity before the passage of that act, both profits and damages can be recovered. Section 111 declares, that actions and causes of action then existing may be .commenced and prosecuted, and that suits then pending may be prosecuted to final judgment and execution, in the same manner as though the act had not been passed, and that the remedial provisions of the act shall be applicable to all suits and proceedings thereafter commenced, although the cause of action may have arisen before. The provisions of the statute regulating the form of action, and prescribing the measure of recovery, at law or in equity, are provisions applicable especially to the remedy; they are among the “remedial provisions.” When theywere declared applicable to all suits thereafter brought, as an exception to language importing that pri- or causes of action, not yet prosecuted, should be commenced and prosecuted, and suits commenced should be prosecuted to judgment, in the same manner as if the act had not been passed, the negative implication is plain, that those remedial provisions which were new have no application to suits then pending. In construing an exception, the ex-pressio unius is eminently the exclusio al-terius.
The interlocutory decree is wrong. Had such a decree been entered by consent, the defendants might be bound by it; but I presume it was entered without the attention of counsel being called to the construction of the statute. How it was settled does not appear.
But, in so far as the exceptions to the report of the commissioner are addressed to this point, the defendants have mistaken the mode of correcting the error. The report conforms to the decree, and, therefore, is not, in this particular, the proper subject of exception. The court should have been applied to, to resettle the decree.
Nevertheless, it is not too late to make the correction. Entertaining the opinion above expressed, the court will not proceed to a final decree against the defendants, which it deems not warranted by law; and the facts reported in detail by the commissioner will enable the court to decree the recovery of the gains and profits made by the defendants, by the infringement, excluding damages beyond that amount. The complainant had his election, to proceed for such gains and profits, or to sue for damages, and he chose the former. As to the result of such election, the law has not been changed since he brought his suit, and it is no hardship that he is held to his election.
As to the “salaries” of the defendants, during the period in which they have been engaged in infringing, they have no title, as against the complainant. It would be very great injustice, if the quantum of gains and profits recoverable by a complainant depended on the question, how much of such gains and profits the defendants used for their own support, or the support of their families, or, as even more broadly claimed here by the defendants, how much they saw fit to appropriate to their own' use. Infringers would rarely be required to pay over anything, if they could divide the gains and profits among themselves, under the name of salary, wages, or any other designation. Men work for gains and profits, but they are gains and profits still. Men support themselves and their families out of their gains and profits,
The exceptions, as exceptions, must be overruled, with costs; but the interlocutory decree should be resettled and entered, and the amount of gains and profits, which, as I understand the report, are $1,668.19, should be awarded by the final decree, with interest thereon, and the costs of suit.