text:
Stockdale v. The Insurance Companies/Dissent Strong

Mr. Justice STRONG, with whom concurred Justices DAVIS and FIELD, dissenting.

I dissent from the judgments given in these cases, and from the reasons assigned in support of the judgments.

If it ever was claimed, it is no longer contended by any one that the tax on dividends and Federal salaries, for the collection and payment of which provision was made by the 120th, 122d, and 123d sections of the Internal Revenue Act of 1864, and its amendments, was not a tax upon income, and a part of the income tax levied by the 116th section of the act. And, notwithstanding what was decided in Barnes v. The Railroads, I regard it as having been settled by the subsequent case of The United States v. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, that the tax on dividends declared and interest payable by the companies mentioned in the 122d section was a tax upon the stockholders and bondholders of the companies, and not a tax upon the corporations. Of this opinion were all the judges of this court except two. Though the corporations were by the law made agents of the government for collecting it and paying it over, the tax itself was ruled to be a part of the income tax of the persons entitled to the interest or dividends. For the same reasons which compelled such a decision, the tax upon dividends declared by banking, trust, and insurance companies, and the tax upon Federal salaries, for the collection and payment of which provision was made in the 120th and the 123d sections of the act, were income taxes of the shareholders of those companies, and of the officers from whose salaries they were directed to be deducted.

And if this be so, then the tax in controversy in these cases was a tax upon the income of 1870, and not upon the income of 1869. None of the dividends were declared until after January 1st, 1870, and some of them not until many months after that date. True the funds out of which the dividends were made were composed of earnings of the company, in some cases wholly and in others partly, in 1869; but these earnings were not available to the shareholders until the dividends were made out of them. Until then they were in no sense the income of the shareholders and taxable as such. In the express words of the act, it was income derived by the taxpayer which alone was made subject to the tax. The language of the law was that the duty on the dividends should be paid whenever the same (that is the dividends) 'shall be payable.' And such was the construction which was from the beginning given to the act. Prior to the enactment of 1864 there was an income tax on dividends at the rate of three per cent., and when by that act the rate was raised to five per cent., the Commissioner of Internal Revenue issued a circular, dated July 1st, 1864, declaring that 'all dividends payable on and after July 1st, 1864, no matter when declared, are subject to the duty of five per centum.' Much more, if dividends are not income before they are payable, are they not income before they are declared? I repeat, then, the taxes in controversy now were taxes upon the income of the shareholders for the year 1870. They were, therefore, not authorized by the statute.

The 119th section of the act, I think, put an end to all taxes on income derived from any source after December 31st, 1869. Its language was, 'the duties on incomes herein imposed shall be levied on the first day of May, and be due and payable on or before the 30th day of June in each year, until and including the year 1870, and no longer.' Construing this, as it must be construed, in connection with the 116th section, the matter is plain. That section declared that the income duty provided for in the act should 'be assessed, collected, and paid upon the gains, profits, or income for the year ending the 31st day of December next preceding the time for levying, collecting, and paying said duty.' The tax authorized to be levied in May, 1870, and the last authorized by the act of 1864, or any of its amendments, was a tax upon the income derived by the taxpayer in 1869.

Returning, then, to the 119th section, it plainly limited the duration of the tax upon income of every kind-all income upon which the act imposed a tax. It excepted none. It did not speak of taxes on income, a return of which was required to be made by the taxpayer, but its language was, 'the duties herein imposed.' The 119th section imposed no tax. Its reference, therefore, must have been to taxes imposed by other sections of the act; to those imposed by the 116th section, which were taxes on income from any source, whether dividends of railroad companies, or banks, or insurance companies, or any other corporations not particularly specified. It is true the 119th section makes no particular mention of taxes on that portion of income mentioned in the 120th, 122d, and 123d sections; but such mention would have been superfluous. They were included in the large classification, 'the duties herein imposed.' The taxes upon such dividends had been paid before the expiration of the previous year; and the act guarded against double taxation by authorizing a deduction from the required estimate, by the assessor, of the income on which the tax had been paid.

Indeed, I think it impossible to escape from the conclusion that the 119th section was intended to enact that no tax should be levied or collected upon any income which was not received by the taxpayer or derived by him, or which did not accrue to him on or before the last day of December, 1869. Any other construction would make the law offensively discriminating and grossly unequal. I cannot believe Congress intended that one who had lent his money to a telegraph company, to a bridge company, or to a mining or manufacturing company, or one who might receive dividends made by such companies, should be exempt from a tax upon his interest and dividends received after December 31st, 1869, while one who had lent to a canal, railroad, banking, insurance, savings fund, or trust company, or who derived dividends from them, should continue indefinitely to pay an income tax on his interest and dividends. I cannot believe it was intended to tax the salaries of officers of the United States after the expiration of the tax upon all other salaries. I will not attribute such injustice to Congress. I discover no intent to make such odious discriminations, and, in my opinion, such an intent ought clearly to appear before a court would be justified in giving the construction to the act which works such a result.

I need say no more upon this part of the case. If the tax upon dividends, made by banking, trust, and insurance companies, the tax upon railroad dividends, and upon salaries of Federal officers was a tax upon income; if the tax mentioned in the 120th and 122d sections was a tax upon the shareholder, or loanholder, and not upon the corporations; if dividends declared in 1870 are not income of the shareholders in 1869; and if the 119th section put an end to all income tax upon income not received by shareholders in companies on or before December 31st, 1869, each of which I have endeavored to show, the right disposition of the cases before us is clear. The several companies who are defendants in error were not authorized to retain any tax out of the dividends made to their shareholders in 1870. No such tax had any legal existence, and the companies were under no obligation to pay it. The judgments they have recovered for the sums illegally exacted from them ought, therefore, to be affirmed.

I do not overlook the later act of Congress, passed July 14th, 1870, to which a majority of my brethren attach some importance as bearing upon these cases. The 17th section of that act enacted 'that sections 120, 121, 122, and 123 of the act of June 30th, 1864, entitled 'An act to provide internal revenue to support the government, to pay interest on the public debt, and for othr purposes,' as amended by the act of July 13th, 1866, and the act of March 2d, 1867, shall be construed to impose the taxes therein mentioned to the first day of August, 1870, but after that date no further taxes shall be levied and assessed under that section.' This was, doubtless, intended as a legislative construction of the sections of the act designated. I shall not turn aside to inquire at length how far the law-making power can determine authoritatively the meaning of an existing statute. The construction, or interpretation, of a statute would seem to be, ordinarily, a judicial rather than a legislative function. I know that acts declaratory of the meaning of former acts are not uncommon. They are always to be regarded with respect, as expressive of legislative opinion, and, so far as they can operate upon subsequent transactions, they are of binding force. But it is well settled they cannot operate to disturb rights vested or acquired before their enactment, or to impose penalties for acts done before their passage, acts lawful when they were done. It is always presumed the legislature had no intention to give them such an effect.

Now, if the income tax imposed by the act of 1864 and its supplements expired with the 31st of December, 1869; if the act did not prescribe a tax upon dividends made after that date, as I have endeavored to maintain, it was not the duty of these defendants in error to pay to the collector five per cent. of the dividends made by them in 1870, and they had no authority to detain any portion of such dividends from their stockholders. On the contrary, it was their duty to pay over the entire dividends to the shareholders, who acquired a vested right in them as soon as they were made, and calling upon them to pay a tax on those dividends was an attempt to enforce a duty that had no existence. It was substantially an effort to enforce a penalty for an omission to do that which they had no right to do, a penalty equal to the amount of a five per cent. tax on the dividends, with an additional five per cent. thereon. The companies, at most, were merely agents of the government to collect a tax from the shareholders and pay it over. Their liability, if any, arose out of an unlawful failure to discharge these duties. But there was no such duty when the dividends were made. Surely the declaratory act of 1870 cannot be regarded as operating retrospectively to make the act, or omission, of these companies unlawful, and punishable as an offence, when the act, or omission, was innocent at the time when it occurred. Were it conceded that the construction given by Congress is binding in all cases where it would not disturb vested rights, or operate practically as an ex post facto law, it can have no application to such a case as the present.

Of course, I am not to be understood as maintaining that when the declaratory act was passed Congress had no power to impose a tax upon any income that had been received before that time. What I mean to assert is that it cannot be admitted Congress intended by the act of 1870 to subject any institution to a penalty for not having, before its passage, collected and paid a tax which had not been imposed. The act, therefore, in my judgment, has no application to the present cases, and I think the judgments should be affirmed.


text: Talk:Stockdale v. The Insurance Companies/Dissent Strong

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Washing-Machine Company v. Tool Company

APPEAL from the Circuit Court for the District of Rhode Island.

The Washing-Machine Company, assignee of Sylvanus Walker, this last being assignee of one Sergeant, filed a bill in the court below against the Providence Tool Company, for an infringement of Division No. 2829, of a patent for an improvement in clothes-wringers. The original patent was granted to Sergeant, July 27th, 1858, and was reissued in two divisions, the one in suit being dated December 31st, 1867. Although the matter which was in issue in the present suit was confined, so far as the complainant's title was concerned, to the reissue No. 2829, it may be well to describe the wringing-machine which was the subject of Sergeant's original patent, and out of which the invention patented in the reissue No. 2829 was carved.

The original machine belonged to the class of clothes-wringers long known as 'twist wringers.' In these, clothes are wrung by twisting them into a rope in the same manner as without a machine the washerwoman twists them by hand. This sort of machine differs from another and well-known class of wringers, in which 'squeezing rollers' squeeze out by pressure water from clothes passed between them. Both sorts of machines had been in use for many years prior to the patent to Sergeant.

In the original machine of Sergeant, Figure 1 represents a yoke-frame of U form, the curved portion being an arc of a circle. This yoke had a pair of jaws and a clamp-wedge for securing the frame to the side of a tub. To the yoke frame a hinged frame E was attached, which, when in position, stood at right angles with the yoke, as shown in the engraving. At the middle point of the cross-bar which united the two sides of the hinged frame there was set a 'hitching-pin,' F, around which the clothes to be wrung were partially wound and held fast by the left hand of the washerwoman, while with her right hand she turned the rotary clamp in Figure 2, which formed a part of the machine, and which gave to the clothes the twist which expelled the water.

The rotary clamp shown at Figure 2 must be supposed to be set in the yoke B of Figure 1. It had a ring, H, with

flanged edges to hold the clamp in the yoke. I and J were lever jaws which jammed against the portion of the clothes inside the ring, and K was a gag for locking the levers. The outer edge of the ring, H, was furnished at intervals with notches, with which the pawl, P (Figure 1), could be made to engage, so that the rotary clamp, when the clothes were twisted, could be prevented from turning backwards, and the washerwoman would be able, if she wished to do so, to gripe with both hands around the hitching-pin, F, the portion of the clothes 'rendered.' With the exception of the model in the Patent Office, there was no evidence that a machine of the kind had ever been constructed. It was too complicated to be practicable.

Such being the machine, the Washing Machine Company, complainant in this case (or Sylvanus Walker, rather, from whom the complainants got it), bought the patent of Sergeant, and obtained the reissue on which this bill was founded.

The apparent idea in getting the reissue was that the apparatus shown at Figure 2 was a wringing mechanism, and was the equivalent of a pair of squeezing rollers; that the yoke-frame (Figure 1) was an apparatus separable from the clamp (Figure 2), and performed the office of supporting such wringing mechanism; and furthermore, that such supporting mechanism was peculiar in the fact that it had a clamping jaw attached to it which made it capable of being temporarily fastened to a tub. The complainant proposed, therefore, to divide the machine and to claim the yoke-frame and its device for being clamped to a tub, as a separate structure, without regard to whether the wringing mechanism used with such 'supporting and connecting apparatus' were rollers or a twister.

The cut, Figure 3, on the page opposite, represents the structure claimed in the reissue under consideration. The specification and claims in this reissue were thus:

'SPECIFICATION.

'The first part of this invention consists of a portable machine, which may be temporarily attached to one side of a common wash-tub, or readily disconnected therefrom, whenever desired, and is especially adapted to wringing clothes.

'The second part of this invention consists in a portable frame, and employed for supporting the wringing mechanism of the machine upon one side of a common wash-tub, by means of a clamping device, which is made to gripe one side of a wash-tub, for the purpose of attaching and sustaining temporarily the entire wringing mechanism of the machine upon one side of a common wash-tub, in a firm and expeditious manner, regardless of the diameter of the tub, which greatly accelerates the operations of washing, rinsing, and wringing of clothes, as will be hereinafter more fully set forth and described.

'In the drawings annexed, A represents a common wash-tub. B is a yoke whose inner margin is of U form, the sides of which extend upwards, forming uprights S S1. From the lower end of yoke B extend two jaws, C C1, the latter of which contains,

within a dovetail groove, a wedge or key, D, whose exposed side is made slightly concave, as shown in Figure 2. The office of the above-described jaws and wedge is to hold the frame, composed of the yoke B with uprights S S1 for supporting the wringing mechanism of the machine, in position for use, on one side of a common wash-tub, in a permanent manner, temporarily, regardless of the diameter of the tub or the thickness of its rim, in reference to which service they are termed collectively the 'vise.'

'This arrangement affords great facility for successively washing, rinsing, and wringing out the clothes from several waters in as many tubs, the wringer being readily changed from tub to tub.

'Omitting to describe the general features of the wringing mechanism of the machine, which will form the subject of another application for letters-patent, of even date with this, and then more particularly the frame for supporting the wringing mechanism in position, and the clamping device by which the frame for holding the wringing mechanism is attached to one side of a common wash-tub, which forms the subject of the present invention.

'When it is desired to have free access to the tub, the wringer may be instantly removed therefrom, so as to allow the operations of washing, rinsing, and wringing to succeed each other, without trouble or delay; or the wringer may be detached instantly, for the purpose of cleaning its parts where dirt is apt to lodge-a common necessity to avoid soiling the next batch after dealing with much soiled or colored garments.

'It will be particularly observed that this wringing-machine differs very materially with those heretofore constructed, in its attachment, by a clamping device, to one side only of a common wash-tub, so it can be constructed separate from and independent of the wash-tub, to which it may be clamped, whenever desired, regardless of its size or diameter; and a further distinctive feature consists in the manner of operation. The wringer being placed in position on one side of the tub, and the jaws made to gripe the same firmly, the clothes are admitted to the wringing mechanism of the machine, and pass through it as fast as the water is expelled therefrom, and they are received at the opposite side of the machine into a basket, piece by piece, as they are wrung out. By this means articles that are of lighter fabric, as lace curtains, can be operated upon lightly, as those that are heavy require more force. By this means lace curtains may be wrung without injury, as the force required to expel the water, when all are wrung together in a bag, will tear the lighter fabrics before the water is sufficiently expelled from those that are stout and heavy.

'I am thus enabled to construct a wringing-machine as a separate and independent device from the wash-tub, box, or other receptacle for receiving the water when expelled from the clothes.

'Wringers heretofore constructed have been attached to the opposite sides of the box or vessel, consequently could not be readily attached to common wash-tubs of various diameters, therefore the box must be of a diameter to correspond to that for which the wringer is adapted, and would thus constitute a part of the device or wringing-machine. Thus, by means of the portable frame for holding the wringing mechanism adapted to clamp the edge of one side only of a common wash-tub, I am enabled to overcome the serious objections referred to above.

'In the clamping device of the invention, a wedge or setscrew, cam, or spring, when having a bearing, so that when power is applied to them they, in conjunction with the jaws, gripe the edge of the tub, as a 'vise,' may be used, in the manner and for the purposes set forth.

'CLAIM.

'Having thus described the invention, what is claimed as new, and desired to be secured by letters-patent, is—

'1. The employment or use of a portable frame or yoke, B, with uprights, S S1, or their equivalents, for supporting a clothes-wringing mechanism in position on one side of a common wash-tub, for the purposes set forth.

'2. The application of an adjustable clamping device, when employed to attach a clothes-wringer to one side only of a wash-tub, substantially in the manner described and for the purposes set forth.'

The defendant's machine (of which a drawing appears just below, Fig. 4) had two uprights. It had also a cross-piece

connecting the lower parts of these uprights. It also had jaws which extended below the yoke, in positions to embrace the side of a wash-tub, to which the machine was to be applied; these jaws being fitted with a screw for the purpose of securing the machine to the object to which the jaws were to be applied. But, as on reviewing it the court considered, it had not the U-formed yoke.

The defendant set up want of novelty in the complainant's invention, so that it became necessary to consider the prior state of the art and fix the extent of the claims in the reissue.

It was not denied that wringing-machines of different forms and of more or less practical value had long been in use, and that devices for clamping or attaching machines of various descriptions to benches, tables, or other articles with which they were used were old and well known. Reels for thread, vises, eyeletting machines, fluting machines, egg-beaters, and small mills had been attached to benches and tables by clamping devices similar in principle to the one described in Sergeant's patent.

It appeared also that a patent for a washing-machine had been

issued to H. W. Sabin, August 16th, 1845. The cut, Fig. 5, represents this wringer; the parts marked h and g being a pair of rollers (one of them fluted), which served as a substitute for the ordinary hitching-pin; one end of the clothes being held fast between these rollers while the other end was secured to a contrivance which held them, so that, by means of the crank supported in the screw-clamp, X, they were twisted and made free from water.

In this machine, as the reader will perceive, a wringer-the common twist-wringer-was supported by a standard furnished with jaws and a clamp-screw, the two forming a clamping device such as is in common use in all wringers at the present time. The standard, however, was not a U-formed yoke-frame, but was simply a support for the journal of a shaft, although the standard had jaws and a clamping screw adapted to secure the standard to the sides of a wash-tub. Unless, therefore, the U form of the yoke-frame in Sergeant's mechanism was to be considered as an essential part of Sergeant's invention, as distinguished from the standard in Sabin's machine, which was simply a support for a journal, there was apparently no novelty.

The question, therefore, was whether the U-formed yoke was an essential part of the invention sought to be secured by the reissue. If it was, the defendants did not infringe, since they did not use the U-formed yoke, while the other parts of their machine were old.

The court below held that the reissue was only for a combination, and that 'the U-formed yoke-frame in the Sergeant machine was necessary as a device for supporting a clothes-wringing mechanism in the manner and for the purposes set forth.'

That court accordingly dismissed the bill, and the complainants appealed.

Messrs. J. H. Parsons and T. A. Jenckes, for the appellants; Messrs. B. H. Thurston and C. L. Woodbury, contra.

Mr. Justice STRONG delivered the opinion of the court.

title: Washing-Machine Company v. Tool Company


text: Talk:Washing-Machine Company v. Tool Company


text:
Washing-Machine Company v. Tool Company/Opinion of the Court

The only question presented by this appeal is whether the reissued patent has been infringed by the defendants. To a correct determination of this question it is indispensable to understand precisely what the patent covers.

The mechanism described in the specification is not claimed to be a complete clothes-wringer. It is rather a device for suspending a wringer over a common wash-tub, a portable frame which may be attached to one side of the tub, and detached at pleasure. In the description of the drawings accompanying the specification, and a part thereof, it is called a frame for supporting the wringing mechanism of the machine as attached to one side of a common wash-tub by means of a clamping device, and the first part of the invention is said to consist of a portable machine which may be temporarily attached to one side of a common wash-tub or readily disconnected therefrom whenever desired, and is especially adapted to wringing clothes.

The second part of the invention, as described in the specification, consists in a portable frame employed for supporting the wringing mechanism of the machine upon one side of a common wash-tub by means of a clamping device, which is made to gripe one side of a wash-tub for the purpose of attaching and sustaining temporarily the entire wringing mechanism of the machine in a firm and expeditious manner, regardless of the diameter of the tub. Such is the language of the patentee. The specification then refers to the drawings, in which what is called the first part of the invention is represented as 'a yoke whose inner margin is of a U form, the sides of which extend upward, forming uprights.' From the lower end of the yoke extend two jaws, one of which contains within a dovetail groove a wedge or key whose exposed side is made slightly concave. The office of the jaws and wedge is to hold the above-described frame or yoke for supporting the wringing mechanism of the machine in position for use on one side of a common wash-tub, in a permanent manner, temporarily, regardless of the diameter of the tub, or the thickness of its rim, in reference to which service they are termed collectively, the 'vise.' Then follow the claims of the patent, the first of which is 'the employment of a portable frame or yoke B (which in the drawings is represented as a U-shaped upright frame), with uprights, S, S' (the sides of the yoke), or their equivalents, for supporting a clothes-wringing mechanism in position on one side of a common wash-tub, for the purposes set forth.'

The second claim is 'the application of an adjustable clamping device, when employed to attach a clothes-wringer to one side only of a wash-tub, substantially in the manner described and for the purposes set forth.'

Regarding these two claims as descriptive of two distinct things, the first must refer to the U-shaped yoke or frame for supporting a wringing-machine, as exhibited in the drawings, and explained in the specification, and the second to a combination of the yoke with a clamping device, when employed to hold a clothes-wringer to the side of a tub. It need hardly be said that the claims are to be construed with reference to the state of the art at the time when the alleged invention was made. The case shows that clothes-wringers of many kinds were known and in use before the original patent was granted to Sergeant. These all had frames for holding them in position, some attached permanently to the wash-tub and others detachable. Their prior existence is recognized in this patentee's specification. Clamping devices of many varieties were also old and well-known means of fastening machines or supports for machines to chairs, benches, platforms, tables, and other articles. Apple-paring machines, coffee-grinders, thread-reels, and smith and carpenters' vises had been supported and held in position by devices like in principle to the clamping arrangement described in the complainants' patent. And it is in proof that letters-patent for a washing-machine were granted to H. W. Sabin, on the 16th of August, 1845, in which a clamping device for attaching the support of a wringing-machine to the side of a tub, and in combination with the support was employed; a device consisting of jaws at the lower extremity of the support, with a screw for compression, identical in principle with that claimed by the complainants. It is very obvious, therefore, if their patent can be sustained at all, it cannot be construed as claiming all forms of a portable frame or support for a washing-machine, nor a combination of a clamping device with any and every kind of such support or frame.

It may well be doubted whether a frame with no distinctive peculiarities, intended for the support of a wringing-machine and sufficient for such a use, though so constructed as to be capable of being attached by projecting jaws to the top of a wash-tub, could be regarded as patentable. Such a mode of attachment has been known and employed time out of mind, and if, before the Sergeant patent was granted, it had not been used in connection with, or as part of a frame or standard for the support of a wringing-machine, the new application, without any novel and useful result, could hardly be considered invention. It would be but a case of double use. Besides, to this extent the Sabin machine had reached years before the Sergeant patent was granted, and, therefore, unless the complainants' patent is limited to some distinctive features other than the jaws at the bottom of the yoke or frame, it must fail for want of novelty if not for want of invention. And this we do not understand to be seriously questioned. We do not understand the complainants as contending that either of the claims of their patent should not be construed as embracing only the peculiarly constructed frame or yoke described in the specification.

What, then, are the distinctive features of the frame, and what are the proposed offices of these features? Manifestly the thing sought to be secured by the peculiarity of form described was not merely a support for a wringing-machine, not merely a standard to hold the machine in position, but a manner of support. And beyond all doubt the U form of the frame is essential. Indeed, it is the only form exhibited in the drawings and described in the specification. The purpose of the frame is also avowed to be to support the clothes-wringer, and the frame exhibits no means of support except the semicircular bottom of the U, which forms a journal bearer, on which the journal of the wringer may rest, while the uprights serve to keep it in position. By themselves the uprights serve no other purpose, and they are no more essential than is the curvilinear space between them, the bottom of the U in the interior of the yoke. It is true a clothes-wringer might be attached to them by the aid of additional devices, but no such devices are disclosed in the drawings or in the specification, and had they been added the frame would have been substantially different from the one patented. It would have been capable of a new use. Equally well could additional devices have fitted the Sabin standard for use in a manner different from that in which it was employed.

Discarding, then, the jaws and the wedge, or other clamping device, as neither patentable by themselves nor patentable in combination with a wringing-machine supporter, or frame, in view of the state of the art when this patent was issued, unless the structure of the frame was such as to obtain a novel and useful result, it becomes evident that the shape of the frame must be regarded as one of its most important elements. And if this be so, the novelty of the frame does not consist in its having two uprights standing apart from each other without regard to the figure of the intervening space. As we have seen, if the semicircular shape of what in the specification is called the inner margin of the yoke, that is, of the space between the uprights, is not a necessary constituent, the yoke cannot accomplish the results claimed for it, and no manner of support for a wringer is exhibited. Surely a frame shaped like an inverted M(M), though it would have two uprights separated by a space and connected at the bottom, would be essentially different from that claimed in this patent, because incapable of the same use. It could not support a clothes-wringer in the manner described in the drawings annexed to the patent. A space bounded by right lines is not substantially the same as one bounded by a curve, and unless we throw out of the specification and the claims all that is said respecting the configuration of the interval between the uprights, we must hold that the defendants, in the use of their device, have not been guilty of any infringement of the complainants' rights. They have used a portable support for a wringing mechanism which has some of the features of that of the complainants, but it has not the U-formed yoke, which is essential to the patented combination.

DECREE AFFIRMED.

This case was argued before the CHIEF JUSTICE took his seat, and he did not participate in the judgment.


text: Talk:Washing-Machine Company v. Tool Company/Opinion of the Court


text: Hailes v. Van Wormer

title: Hailes v. Van Wormer


text: Talk:Hailes v. Van Wormer

title: Talk:Hailes v. Van Wormer


text:
Hailes v. Van Wormer/Opinion of the Court

APPEAL from the Circuit Court for the Northern District of New York.

Hailes & Treadwell, manufacturers of stoves, filed a bill in the court below against Van Wormer et al., engaged in the same business, to enjoin these last from making a certain sort of coal-stoves called 'base-burning,' 'self-feeding,' or 'reservoir' stoves. These stoves are so called because they have a magazine or reservoir suspended above the fire-pot, which may be filled with coal at its upper extremity. This, when filled, is closed by a cover. The lower end of the reservoir or feeder is left open, and, as the coal in the fire-pot is consumed, that in the reservoir falls and supplies the place of that consumed, the combustion being only in the fire-pot, and not in the reservoir. Every reader, on looking at the diagrams on pages 355, 356 and 357, will recognize the sort of stove referred to.

The value of this sort of stove, which had been in large use in this country for some time, was not a matter of question. But persons were not all agreed as to what was the most economical and otherwise the most advantageous mode of embodying the principle which made the distinguishing characteristic of the stoves.

The bill was founded on two letters-patent; one reissued patent, granted to the complainants, February 3d, 1863, for an 'improvement in stoves,' the original patent having been granted to Hailes & Treadwell, as inventors, May 7th, 1861; the other a patent granted to one Mead and Hailes, assignees of Hailes & Treadwell, as inventors, August 11th, 1863, for an 'improvement in coal stoves;' the interest of Mead in

The specification of the reissue of February 3d, 1863, said:

'Our experience in this class of stoves' (base-burning or reservoir stoves) 'is, that the most beneficial effects are to be secured from an organization which does not pass the products of combustion up, around, and over the top of the coal-supply reservoir, so as to heat a surrounding jacket thereof, but heats a circulating or ascending body of air by means of radiated heat from the fire-pot, and at the same time heats the base of the stove by means of direct heat, circulating through descending flues which lead into the ash-pit, or around it, and to the smoke and draft flue; also, that the greatest economy, considering the increased benefit secured from supplying coal continuously out of a reservoir, is attained with an arrangement which holds the superincumbent body of coal in suspension, such arrangement being a reservoir with a contracted discharge extending slightly down into a flaring or enlarged fire-pot, around or above the whole upper edge of which, outside of the contracted discharge of the coal-supply reservoir, the flame is allowed to circulate, and, therefore, caused to descend and circulate around or under the base portion of the stove, in its passage to the smoke and draft flue.

'The effect of the first-named plan is to husband the radiated heat and use it for the purpose of warming the upper part of the stove and the room in which it is situated, as well as for heating air for warming rooms above, if desirable, and at the same time to so confine the direct fire-heat and keep it in contact with the base portion of the stove a sufficient length of time as to insure the warming of the same to a comfortable degree.

'The effect of the second plan is to relieve the incandescent coal from the weight of the body of superincumbent coal, and thus obviate a compression of the incandescent coal in the fire-pot, and secure for the flame a free expansion in a lively and brilliant manner, and thus enable it to act with great heating effect upon the lower portion of the stove in its passage to the smoke and draft flue.

'With the view of organizing a stove or heater which operates on the base-burning or coal-supply reservoir principle, and at the same time embraces the two plans of operation above referred to, we have devised the following plan of construction:'A is a base of our stove, constructed with a chamber B, which extends around and beneath the top plate of the said base. In this chamber air may be admitted through the front passage A. Upon the top-plate of the base A is erected a support C, for horizontal grate D, and a fire-pot E, as shown. The support forms a chamber below the grate, and out of the front of the support

a portion of metal is removed as at b, so that air to the fire on the grate may have free access when the ordinary regulator or damper is open. In order to insure the passage of the air to the fire only from below the grate, a cut-off, c, extends out from the upper front part of the support C, and rests upon the two lateral stops d, which extend out from the front of the support, as shown. The top plate of the base, at points outside of the support C, is perforated with three apertures, F, F1, F2, which communicate with the chamber B. The apertures F1, F2, have vertical pipes F3, F4, placed in or around them, while the aperture F has the draft and smoke pipe or flue F5 placed in or around it, as shown. The pipes F3, F4, extend up to the upper rim of the fire-pot E, and connect to perforated flanges or ears of said pot, so that a space, f, exists between the pipes and fire-pot, as shown. The outer portion of the top edge of the pipes F3, F4, protrudes above the flanges to a slight degree, as indicated at g, g.

'The fire-pot flares at top and contracts at its bottom; the flare and contraction are gradual. The section of the metal, of which the pot is made, shows a gradual decrease in thickness from the centre of the depth of the pot in an up and downward direction, as indicated at 1, 2, 3. This construction or form of the metal insures an equable heating of the pot at all parts, and a uniform expansion and contraction by the principle of conduction, the thickest and most intensely heated portion imparting to the thinnest or less intensely heated portions a large amount of its heat, on the principle just mentioned.

'Above the fire-pot and vertical pipes the coal-supply reservoir G is arranged. The reservoir is constructed with a flange, h, at its base, said flange turning down at its outer edge so as to form a right angle, or thereabouts, as shown at i. The rim, i, of the flange fits down upon the rim of the fire-pot and incloses the top opening of the fire-pot of the vertical pipes within a continuous chamber J, as represented; the said chamber constituting an enlargement to the upper portion of the fire-pot, as it were, and thus giving increased room for the expansion of the flame.

'The diameter of the coal reservoir is decreased below the point where the body of supply coal is suspended by means of an extension or ring-flange, k, which is in form of an inverted frustum of a cone. This flange also serves, in connection with a detachable ring v, which, also, is in form of an inverted frustum of a cone, to form a frame or sash for the reception of fire-brick or other fire-proof material, as shown at m. The ring v has a horizontal flange, and bolts by the same, to the under side of the flange n of the coal-supply reservoir. The fire-brick are shaped so as to form, when put together, an inverted frustum of a cone, and they, therefore, when clamped between the devices k, v, cannot descend, separately, out of their places, nor can they do so unitedly, as the largest circumference of the conic frustum m cannot pass through the space between the lower ends of the devices k, v. It will be observed that the fire-brick continue the contraction of the coal-supply reservoir, and thus insure a gradual descent of the supply coal upon the central part of the bed of incandescent coal, and at the same time leave a large and open space outside of the conic frustum m, for the free burning and expanding of the gases or flame. This result is also furthered by the dishing form of the flange h, the same forming a large circulating flame-channel J, all round the upper edge of the fire-pot, as illustrated.

'The reservoir G is continued up to a horizontal division-plate I of the stove, by means of an extension G1, as shown. The division-plate I has a large coal-induction hole n in its centre and several hot-air passages o o near its circumference or outside of the circle of the coal-supply reservoir, as shown. Around the central hole n there is constructed a small, combined cylindric and conic hopper J, which is furnished with an adjustable valve s, and a removable cover-plate J2, as hereinafter described. Through and from the rear of this hopper there extends a branch draft-flue r, the same leading into the main draft-flue F5, as shown. In order to open and close this flue (r) and also to open and close the induction-hole to the coal-supply reservoir, the taper-valve s is fitted to the lower part of the hopper J, and up from the centre of the back of this valve a vertical rod s1 extends and passes through the removable cover-plate J2 of the hopper, and also through a weight s2, as shown. The weight s2 is not level on its bottom with the top surface of the cover-plate J2, nor is the quantity of metal on one side of the rod as great as that on the other side. The cover-plate, the valve, the rod, and the weight, are all connected together, so that by taking hold of the rod the whole can be lifted together, that is, when the valve is raised, first, to its full stroke; but the connection is also such that, when the valve is required to be raised a less distance than its full stroke, the movement of the valve is independent of the cover-plate J2; therefore the branch-flue r can be opened and closed or the damper-valve adjusted without disturbing the cover-plate, and whenever such an adjustment of the valve is made, the weight, by reason of its being unbalanced, will automatically bind upon the rod and hold it and the valve in suspension.

'It is desirable to open the branch of the direct draft-flue when the fire is first started, and also before the cover-plate J2 is removed, first, in order to obtain a powerful draft, and second, to pass off the pent-up gases in the coal reservoir through the branch-flue, instead of allowing them to puff out into the room at the time when fresh coal is being introduced.

'The organization thus far described has but one shell, and in order to make it a double shell or wall-stove a casing, K, L, M, is placed around it from base to top. The part K of this casing incloses a portion of the fire-pot, and of the vertical pipes and draft-flue. This part is finely perforated all around so as to admit air to the first wall, to be heated as indicated at w. The part L of the casing incloses the remainder of the vertical pipes and fire-pot, and also a small portion of the coal-supply reservoir, but not the main draft or smoke flue. It is also finely perforated so as to admit cold air, as indicated at w1. The part M of the casing incloses the remainder of the coal-supply reservoir, and extends up to and unites with a stationary top or finishing plate W2. This part of the casing is not perforated, but the plate W2 has perforations through it for the escape of the confined heated air W3 into the room or into pipes leading to rooms above, as indicated by arrows W4.

'It will be seen that the air circulates all about the radiating surface, and thus protects the same from rapid destruction by the fire, and while this is the case the air is very thoroughly heated, and discharged in that state into the room where the stove is situated, or into other conductors.'

There were in this reissue twelve claims, the first five of which, the complainants alleged, had been infringed by the defendants, namely:

'(1.) A base-burning, coal-supply reservoir stove or furnace, so constructed that the products of combustion do not pass up, around, and above the supply-reservoir, nor up through the grate, but down outside of the fire-pot toward the base of the stove, and out through a main draught flue, which leads directly from a space or chamber about the lower part of the stove, all for the purpose set forth and substantially as described.

'(2.) The contracting of the discharge end of the coal-supply reservoir, the expanding of the fire-pot, and the extending of the flame-passage downward, for united operation, in a base-burning, coal-supply reservoir stove or furnace, essentially as set forth.

'(3.) A fire-pot resting on a base, and imperforated on its inner or outer circumference, or from its inner to its outer circumference, and so constructed and applied, with respect to a coal-supply reservoir, that an inclosed horizontal chamber for the free expansion and circulation of the flame and gases, is formed all around and outside of the contracted discharge, and above the upper edge of the fire-pot, substantially as and for the purpose set forth.

'(4.) The descending passage or passages, in combination with the continuous flame-expansion and circulation passage, and a main draft-flue, leading out of the base or lower part of the stove or furnace, substantially as set forth and for the purpose described.

'(5.) Constructing the fire-pot of a base-burning, coal-supply reservoir stove or furnace, with an imperforated circumference and in the form of a trumpet-mouth at its upper portion, in combination with descending flame-passages, substantially as described and for the purpose set forth.'

The specification of the patent of August 11th, 1863, stated that the invention covered by it was an improvement on the stove patented by the reissue of February 3d, 1863, and consisted,

'1st. In the construction of an illumination-window or windows, at one or more points in the continuous flame-expansion chamber or channel, which is about the base of the coal-supply reservoir and the top of the coal-burning fire-pot, in combination with a descending flue which leads to a chamber about the base of the stove, and from such chamber into a chimney-flue.

'2d. In the construction of a damper draft-flue in the continuous flame-expansion chamber or channel, located as just stated, in combination with a descending flue, which first leads down into a chamber about the base of the stove, and then into the chimney-flue, with which the damper draft-flue connects directly at the top of the fire-pot.'

The patent (see figures on page 364) proceeded:

'Fig. 1 is a vertical longitudinal section of a stove patented by us at previous dates, with our improvements of the present date applied to it.

'Fig. 2 is a vertical transverse section of the whole stove.

'Our first improvement is carried into practice by casting the fire-pot A with a rectangular, elliptical, or circular extension a (Fig. 1) (6) at one or more points of its upper edge. This enlargement we extend through an opening in the outer casing or jacket B of the stove, and close it with mica or other transparent material C, as shown. We may find it more practical to form a short ledge on the upper edge of the fire-pot, as at b, and cast the

enlargement c on the part D, which forms the expansion-flame passage E, as shown. In any case, the illumination-window must be constructed so as to confine the flame and gases at this point within the flame-chamber E.

'Our second improvement is carried into practice by casting in like manner an enlargement of proper form to make a branch-flue F on the upper edge of the fire-pot, or on the lower edge of the part D, as represented. This branch-flue we run into the smoke-pipe or draft-flue G, and in order to open and close it at will, we have arranged within it a damper or valve I, which has its rod, by which it is turned, extended to the outside of the casing of the stove. By opening the damper a direct draft is obtained, and the fire can be kindled very speedily, and the draft does not have to pass up through the body of coal in the reservoir, as in our other patented stove. When the damper is closed, the highly ignited gases pass down the descending flues J J, as in our former patent. We will here state that we have slightly modified the base of our stove by increasing the depth of the ash-pit K, and dispensing with a chamber or space underneath the ash-pit. This space or chamber L, in which the heated products of combustion circulate to heat the base of the stove, and pass to the draft- or smoke-flue, being only around the ash-pit.'

There were in this patent six claims, the first two of which, the complainants alleged, had been infringed by the defendants, namely:

'(1.) The combination of the illuminating openings, flame-expansion chamber, coal-supply reservoir, fire-pot, descending flue and draft-flue, substantially in the manner and for the purpose described.

'(2.) The combination with the flame-expansion chamber, formed at the base of the coal-supply reservoir, and around the upper edge of the fire-pot of a base-burning stove, of the branch draft-flue with damper, when the same are located with respect to the flame-expansion chamber, fire-pot, coal-supply reservoir, and descending combustion-flues, substantially as and for the purpose described.'

Certain parts of the things above described were shown by the evidence, or were admitted, not to be new in A.D. 1861, when the complainants professed to have invented their base-burning stove. Among them these:

The introduction of a magazine or reservoir into a stove for the purpose of supplying coal to the fire-pot below.

The contraction of the lower end of the said reservoir, so that it should be smaller than the upper portion thereof, which, the complainants asserted, aided in sustaining the mass of coal therein, and prevented too great pressure upon the burning coal in the fire-pot.

The construction of a fire-pot of larger diameter at the top than at the bottom.

So also stoves so constructed that the smoke, gas, and other products of combustion passed from the fire-chamber through downward flues to or near the level of the bottom of the stove were common; the revertible flues so-called had long been in use.

In one of the exhibits these products of combustion were passed down and through a chamber in the base of the stove and thence out into the smoke pipe.

The addition of a direct draft to such stoves as were constructed with revertible flues by means of a flue above the fire-pot provided with a damper to be closed after the fuel had been ignited was no novelty.

The use of openings in the exterior or shell of the stove and the insertion of mica therein in order to permit the light emitted in the process of combustion to be seen, had been employed for very many years.

The stove of the defendant, which the complainants alleged infringed their patents, contained in combination several of the devices claimed by the complainants, as—

1. The flaring fire-pot supported by a base, the diameter of the pot narrower at the bottom than at the top.

2. A vessel over the fire-pot to receive the coal, and let it down by way of supply on the fire below; the lower end of the vessel being narrower than the upper.

3. Revertible flues outside of the pot to conduct the products of combustion downwards to the base of the stove and thence to a main draft-flue leading thereout.

4. A direct draft for such stoves as are constructed with revertible flues, the direct draft being obtained by a flue passing out above the fire-pot, and provided with a damper to be closed after the fuel has been ignited.

5. Holes or openings in the iron case of the stove in which to put plates of mica so as to let the fire in the stove be seen through it, and to give light to the room in which the stove is.

In the defendant's stove, however, there was no such peculiar structure of the lower extremity of the supply reservoir, nor such a closed expansion-chamber as in the complainant's stove; the reservoir did not rest on the fire-pot; nor had it a connection either with it or with the sides of the stove; nor was there anything interposed to the passage of the products of combustion up and around the reservoir when the flue for direct draft was open; and when that flue was closed the flame was not detained over the burning coal, but the products of combustion passed directly across the edge of the fire-pot and descended along its sides to the interior draft-passage.

So, in the defendant's stove, the entire space around the magazine and the fire-pot was completely inclosed. There was but a single chamber around the reservoir over the surface of the burning coal and around the fire-pot. Through this chamber the products of combustion passed, either through the direct draft-flue, when that was in use, or to the base of the stove and thence outward.

The court below dismissed the bill and the complainant brought the case here.

Mr. E. H. Bennett, for the appellant; Mr. C. M. Keller, for the appellee.

Mr. Justice STRONG delivered the opinion of the court.

The sort of stoves known as 'base-burners,' or self-feeding stoves, had been made and they were well known years before either of the complainants' patents were granted, and it is not asserted that merely as base-burning stoves they are within the monopoly of the patents. The inventions claimed are alleged improvements in the structure and arrangement of such stoves. They consist in what is described as a new combination of old and known devices producing a new manufacture, namely, a stove uniting in itself all the advantages of a reservoir stove, and those of a revertible-draft stove which prevents the products of the combustion in the fire-pot from passing up, around, and over the reservoir, thereby heating the fuel therein so as to expel its gases, and cause their explosion as well as their escape into the apartments where the stove may be placed. All the devices of which the alleged combination is made are confessedly old. No claim is made for any one of them singly, as an independent invention.

It must be conceded that a new combination, if it produces new and useful results, is patentable, though all the constituents of the combination were well known and in common use before the combination was made. But the results must be a product of the combination, and not a mere aggregate of several results each the complete product of one of the combined elements. Combined results are not necessarily a novel result, nor are they an old result obtained in a new and improved manner. Merely bringing old devices into juxtaposition, and there allowing each to work out its own effect without the production of something novel, is not invention. No one by bringing together several old devices without producing a new and useful result the joint product of the elements of the combination and something more than an aggregate of old results, can acquire a right to prevent others from using the same devices, either singly or in other combinations, or, even if a new and useful result is obtained, can prevent others from using some of the devices, omitting others, in combination.

If now we examine the patents held by the complainants, looking first at the objects sought to be obtained by the combinations for which the patents were granted, they are, as described in the specification, first, to prevent the passage of the products of combustion up, around, and over the top of the coal-supply reservoir, so as to heat a surrounding jacket thereof; and, secondly, to heat a circulating or ascending body of air by means of radiated heat from the fire-pot, and at the same time to heat the base of the stove by means of direct heat circulating through descending flues which lead into the ash-pit, or around it, and to the smoke and draft flue. A third avowed object is to secure economy by retarding the fall of the coal into the fire-pot from the supply reservoir, and by causing the flame to circulate outside of the contracted discharge of the reservoir, and around the upper edge of the fire-pot, and thence to descend around or under the base of the stove in its passage to the smoke and draft flue. Such are the avowed objects of the combinations claimed to have been devised by the patentees, and their effects they assert to be husbanding the radiated heat, and using it for the purpose of warming the upper part of the stove and the room in which it is situated, as well as for heating air for warming rooms above, if desirable, and at the same time so confining the direct fire heat, and keeping it in contact with the base portion of the stove as to insure warming it to a comfortable degree. A second effect claimed is relief of the incandescent coal from the weight of the body of superincumbent coal, thus preventing the compression of the burning coal in the fire-pot, and securing for the flame free expansion, thus enabling it to act with greater heating effect upon the lower portion of the stove in its passage to the smoke and draft flue.

The combination employed to produce these effects consists of the following devices, among others:

1st. A flaring fire-pot supported by a base, the diameter of the pot being larger at the top than at the bottom.

2d. A magazine or reservoir for supplying coal, located over the fire-pot, and having its lower end contracted.

3d. Revertible passages or flues outside of the pot for the conduct of the products of combustion downwards to the base of the stove and thence to a main draft flue leading thereout.

4th. A direct draft for such stoves as are constructed with revertible flues, the direct draft being obtained by a flue passing out above the fire-pot and provided with a damper to be closed after the fuel has been ignited.

5th. Openings in the case or exterior of the stove and the insertion of mica therein for the purpose of illuminating the room in which the stove may be with the light of the burning fuel.

These devices with others are brought together and claimed as a new combination, and several combinations of some of them are also claimed as inventions, producing novel and useful results. What those other devices are we need not specify, for it is not shown that they are employed by the defendants.

The stove of the defendants does, however, contain all those mentioned and contain them in combination. That each of them was an old device, well known, and in public use before the patents of the complainants were granted is abundantly proved by the evidence submitted. A flaring fire-pot, a supply reservoir with its lower extremity of smaller diameter than its upper, revertible flues, a place for flame expansion above the fire-pot, the addition of a direct draft for use in igniting the fuel, provided with a damper, and the insertion of mica for illumination openings, were all found in stoves before Hailes and Treadwell claimed to have made their invention. It is true there is a peculiarity in the construction of the lower extremity of the complainants' supply reservoir. It is provided with a circular flange, extending outward and bending downward, so as to fit upon the upper rim of the fire-pot, and thus form a closed combustion-chamber. This, of course, cuts off communication with the space around the upper part of the reservoir, and confines the flame and other products of combustion within a circular combustion-chamber thus formed, leaving no outlet for them except through ear passages into revertible flues. For this device, the peculiar structure of the reservoir, and the formation of the closed expansion chamber, there is no equivalent in the defendants' stove. There is no such closed chamber. The reservoir does not rest on the fire-pot. It has no connection with it, or with the sides of the stove. Nor is there any obstacle interposed to the passage of the products of combustion up and around the reservoir when the flue for direct draft is open. And when that flue is closed, the flame is not detained over the burning coal, but the products of combustion pass directly across the edge of the fire-pot and descend along the sides thereof to the inferior draft-passage. Such an arrangement is not fitted to produce the effects sought and claimed for the complainants' stoves. On the contrary, it plainly excludes them.

There are other differences in the devices used both in the complainants' and the defendants' stoves, which we think are substantial, and not merely formal. The combination claimed by the complainants passes the products of combustion out of the chamber through perforations in the flange or through ears into flues leading downwards but wholly exterior to the fire-pot, and not in contact with it. This arrangement makes it possible to introduce external air through perforations in the outer casing of the stove, and allow it when heated by contact with the fire-pot and the descending flues to escape from the top. Accordingly the outer casing is perforated, and there is no closed magazine around the fire-pot. But in the defendants' stove there is no such device and no such effects are produced. There are no external downward flues separated from the fire-pot. The whole space around the magazine and the fire-pot is completely inclosed. There is but a single chamber around the reservoir, over the surface of the burning coal, and around the fire-pot. Through this chamber the products of combustion pass, either through the direct draft-flue, when that is in use, or to the base of the stove and thence outwards. This arrangement also excludes the possibility of an effect claimed for the Hailes and Treadwell invention. It admits of no space around the fire-pot to which the external air can have access.

It is not, then, the combination of old devices which the defendants use that Hailes and Treadwell invented. It is not those old devices that produce the new results claimed. The complainants' combination is a different thing. It has a greater number of constituent elements. It consists in the employment of the devices used by the defendants, together with others they do not use, and the result of the entire combination is the production of a stove differing very materially from that of the defendants. And the defendants combination cannot produce the results claimed for that of the complainants. We have said that the new results claimed, whatever they may be, are not the production of the combined devices common to both stoves. The devices used by the defendants produce no new effects, because used in combination. The space around the fire-pot leading to the base doubtless secures the beneficial results long known to follow the use of revertible flues. It may be conceded to be an equivalent for such flues. But the results of its construction are not changed by the fact that a flaring fire-pot, and a supply reservoir with a contracted discharge end, and openings for illumination are used in the same stove. It still operates to conduct the products of combustion to the base, and into the exit flue. No new operation is given to it by the combination. The same may be said of every other device employed by the defendants which is also in the complainants' combination. Each produces its appropriate effect unchanged by the others. That effect has no relation to the combination; in no sense can it be called its product. Thus far nothing novel is produced. This, then, is mere aggregation of devices, not invention, and consequently the use of those devices, either singly or together, cannot be held to be any infringement of rights belonging to the complainants.

We pass now to consider more in detail the claims in the complainants' patents which it is alleged the defendants have infringed. The first in the reissued patent, dated February 3d, 1863, is unquestionably too broad to be sustained, unless limited to the means described in the specification. So it was doubtless intended by the patentees to be limited, for the claim speaks of the combination claimed 'as substantially described,' that is, described in the specification. Thus limited, one of its essential elements is a closed combustion-chamber over the fire-pot, formed by a flange of the reservoir resting on the upper edge of the pot, and provided with perforations or ears connecting with two flues passing downwards. This element is indispensable for the purposes asserted in the claim, as well as in the specification. And the peculiar structure of the chamber is more than formal. It is functional. It prevents the passage of the flame and other products of combustion up, around, and over the supply reservoir, which is a leading avowed object of the invention, precisely the improvement patented. But this constituent of the combination the defendants have never used, nor have they used any corresponding device, or device producing the same results.

The second claim is for contracting the discharge end of the coal-supply reservoir, expanding the fire-pot, and extending the flame passage downward for united operation in a base-burning coal-supply reservoir stove or furnace, essentially as set forth. The means set forth for extending the flame passage downwards are perforations through the flange forming the lateral boundary of the closed combustion-chamber, or ears leading thereout and close flues extending from the ears or perforations downward at some distance from the fire-pot through a space bounded on one side by the fire-pot and on the other by an outer casing of the stove perforated for the admission of external air. It might, perhaps, be questioned whether there is any device in the defendants' stove corresponding to this, but waiving the consideration of that question, it is very evident that the combination of the three devices named is not the work of invention. They have no relation to each other. Neither the form of the feeder, nor the shape of the fire-pot bears at all upon the direction of the draft passages. There is no novel result flowing from the joint operation of the three devices. The revertible flues have no more to do with a stove supplied by a feeder than they would have with a stove supplied by hand. There is, therefore, nothing in this claim that interferes with what the defendants have done.

An essential element of the combinations mentioned in both the third and fourth claims is the closed combustion-chamber formed, in part by a circular flange extending outward and closing on the top of the fire-pot, with perforations in it, or ears for connection with the downward flues, or it is those perforations or ears leading out of such a chamber to the descending passages. These devices the defendants do not employ, and they cannot be used in the defendants' stove. There has been, therefore, no infringement of these claims.

The fifth claim is the only remaining one contained in the reissue which the defendants are alleged to have invaded. It is constructing the fire-pot of a base-burning stove with an imperforated circumference and in the form of a trumpet mouth at its upper extremity, in combination with descending flame passages, substantially as described, and for the purposes set forth. How in combination? As described in the specification, united by means of perforated flanges or ears of the pot, involving, of course, the presence of a closed combustion-chamber constructed substantially as already described. Construing the claim thus, as we think it must be construed, the defendants have been guilty of no infringement.

Passing now to the second patent, issued August 11th, 1863, we observe that its first claim was for a combination of the illumination openings, flame-expansion chamber, coal-supply reservoir, fire-pot, descending-flue and draft-flue, substantially in the manner and for the purpose described. In the main this is the same combination as that claimed in the reissued patent we have had under consideration. The only change is the addition of illumination openings. These were a well-known device applied to stoves long before either of the patents were granted. They perform no peculiar office in the new combination. They have no possible relation to it. They do not affect, in the slightest degree, the results of that combination, whatever they may be. It is impossible to regard the mere addition of such openings to a stove containing the improvements described in the reissued patent, as the formation of a new patentable combination. It is not invention. If, however, it were, the defendants have not trespassed upon it, for of the combination the peculiarly formed close expansion chamber is an essential constituent, and that is not found in the defendants' stove.

Similar remarks might be made respecting the second claim of the patent of August, the only remaining one alleged to have been infringed. All the elements of the combination have not been used by the defendants.

DECREE AFFIRMED.

This case was argued before the CHIEF JUSTICE took his seat, and he did not participate in the judgment.


text: Talk:Hailes v. Van Wormer/Opinion of the Court


text:
Ferris v. Higley

ERROR to the Supreme Court of the Territory of Utah. The case, which involved a question as to the jurisdiction of the Probate Courts of Utah, was thus:

In 1850 Congress passed an act 'to establish a Territorial government for Utah;' the organic act governing the Territory. The act is a long act, of seventeen sections. It defines the boundaries of Utah; establishes an executive power and defines its duties; provides for a secretary of the Territory and defines his duties. It establishes also a legislative power; declares of whom it shall be composed, and how the persons composing it shall be elected, and the qualification of the voters electing them.

In defining the legislative power it says among numerous other things:

'SECTION 6. The legislative power of said Territory shall extend to all rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act.

'All the laws passed by the legislative assembly and governor shall be submitted to the Congress of the United States, and if disapproved shall be null and of no effect.'

It then thus establishes the judicial power:

'SECTION 9. The judicial power of said Territory shall be vested in a Supreme Court, District Courts, Probate Courts, and in justices of the peace.'

The same section then declares of how many justices the Supreme Court shall consist; that the President of the United States shall appoint them (as the act also does that he shall the governor, secretary, attorney, and marshal, enacting that the United States shall pay the salaries of all), and how many judges of the Supreme Court shall make a quorum, and for what term their commissions shall run. It divides the Territory into judicial districts, makes District Courts, enacts that the judges of the Supreme Court shall hold them; and adds:

'The jurisdiction of the several courts herein provided for, both appellate and original, and THAT OF THE PROBATE COURTS and of justices of the peace SHALL BE AS LIMITED BY LAW. Provided, that justices of the peace shall not have jurisdiction of any matter in controversy, where the title or boundaries of land may be in dispute, or where the debt or sum claimed shall exceed one hundred dollars, and the said Supreme and District Courts respectively shall possess chancery as well as common law jurisdiction.'

The act gives power to the Supreme and District Courts to appoint their clerks, and enacts additionally:

'Writs of error, bills of exception, and appeals shall be allowed in all cases from the final decisions of said District Courts to the Supreme Court, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law. . ..

'Writs of error and appeals from the final decisions of said Supreme Court shall be allowed, and may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States in the same manner and under the same regulations as from the Circuit Courts of the United States.'

But though the act goes into full details about the Supreme and District Courts, and, in fact, about everything else relating to the government of the Territory, it says nothing more in any part of it about Probate Courts than the eleven words above quoted, on page 376, in small capitals.

With this act of Congress in force as the fundamental law of the Territory, the Territorial legislature in 1855 passed an act, entitled 'An act in relation to the judiciary.' That act says:

'The several Probate Courts in their respective counties have power to exercise original jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, and as well in chancery as at common law, when not prohibited by legislative enactment; and they shall be governed in all respects by the same general rules and regulations as regards practice as the District Courts.'

Congress had not enacted any act 'disapproving' of this Territorial act, and thus rendering it, by Federal legislation, null and of no effect.

In this state of enactment, Congressional and Territorial, Higley sued Ferris in the Probate Court of Salt Lake County, on a promissory note for $1000, and obtained a judgment there. The case coming into the District Court of the third judicial district, was reversed, on the ground that the Probate Court had no jurisdiction of such a suit; and this judgment being affirmed on appeal to the Supreme Court, it was now brought here by writ of error to that court.

The question, of course, was whether under the organic act of the Territory vesting the judicial power of that Territory 'in a Supreme Court, District Courts, Probate Courts, and in justices of the peace,' and declaring that the jurisdiction of those courts-mentioning specially 'that of the Probate Courts' should be as limited by law-the said organic act-in its grant of power to the Territorial legislature to legislate on all 'rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the provisions of the act' meant that the jurisdiction of the courts should be limited-that is to say, should be defined by its law-the law of the Territory alone; or whether it also referred to and included the ancient law, well known in nearly all the United States of America, which fixes the constitution of those courts which under various names, including that of Probate Courts, have the care of the estates and concerns of persons deceased.

Messrs. C. J. Hillyer and T. Fitch, for the plaintiff in error:

It cannot be argued that the establishment and definition of jurisdiction of courts of record is not 'a rightful subject of legislation,' or that Territorial legislation to that end with respect to local courts, is inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States.

The only inquiry is then whether the Territorial statute conferring common-law and chancery jurisdiction upon Probate Courts is inconsistent with the provisions of the act of Congress.

It is submitted that Congress, in declaring that the jurisdiction of the Probate Courts shall be 'as limited by law,' intended a law to be hereafter enacted either by itself or by the Territorial legislature, and that the Territorial legislature, in conferring upon the Probate Courts common-law jurisdiction to an unlimited extent, did no more than it was empowered by the act of Congress to do. It is further submitted that the failure of Congress to subsequently annul this act of the Territorial legislature by a disapproving statute validates the exercise of power by the Territorial legislature, even if it had been originally of doubtful validity.

The idea that Congress, in using the words 'as limited by law,' intended, not statutory enactments alone, but 'the law' in its broader sense, wherein the history of Probate Courts, the constructions of eminent writers and the interpretation of courts as to the powers and jurisdiction of Probate Courts in general are considered as part of 'the law,' can hardly be sustained. A grant of power from the lawmaking body, accompanied by a reservation that such power so granted may afterwards be 'limited by law,' means a law to be thereafter enacted, and not a judicial construction of existing enactments.

Neither can it be argued that, as the section of the act of Congress heretofore quoted confers original chancery and common-law jurisdiction upon the District Courts, it therefore, by necessary implication, excludes such jurisdiction from all other courts under the application of the maxim. The act of Congress referred to is not a penal statute, and the maxim, 'Expressio unius,' &c., does not apply.

The words 'have power' in the Territorial act, are unusual in a statute meant to grant power. The usual words are, 'shall have power.' One of the judges of the court below was of the opinion that the words used were meant as a simple declaration of the Territorial legislature that the jurisdiction already existed, though he did not rest the case on that ground. His opinion is submitted.

No opposing counsel.

Mr. Justice MILLER, delivered the opinion of the court.

title: Ferris v. Higley


text: Talk:Ferris v. Higley

title: Talk:Ferris v. Higley


text:
Ferris v. Higley/Opinion of the Court

The single question in this case is whether the Probate Court had jurisdiction to hear and determine such an action as it heard and determined in the present case; and this must be decided by a construction of the statute of the Territory and the provisions of the act of Congress organizing the Territory.

A statute of the Territorial legislature enacts that 'the several Probate Courts, in their respective counties, have power to exercise original jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, and as well in chancery as at common law, when not prohibited by legislative enactment, and they shall be governed in all respects by the same general rules and regulations as regards practice as the District Courts.'

In a very learned opinion of one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the Territory, we find an ingenious argument in support of the idea-though the case is not rested on this ground-that this provision was not intended to confer jurisdiction, but was a mere declaration of the opinion of the Territorial legislature that the jurisdiction already existed. This is founded on the use of the words 'have power' in the present tense, instead of 'shall have power,' in the future. We have no doubt that the legislature intended to confer the power by that sentence. No statute or other law existed previously by which any one ever supposed that such power existed. The form of expression here used is not at all uncommon for that purpose, especially in enactments which, like this, are parts of a general code of laws. The legislature was not in any manner called upon to give its opinion of the powers of the Probate Court, but it was in fact making a general system of laws for the Territory. It is inconceivable that it meant anything else but to establish the court and prescribe its jurisdiction.

But the power of the legislature to confer this jurisdiction on the Probate Courts is a much more serious question.

The organic act, in defining the power of the Territorial legislature, declares that 'it shall extend to all rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the Constitution of the United States, and with that act.'

We may, I think, assume, without much hazard, that defining the jurisdiction of a Probate Court, or, indeed, of any court, may be fairly included within the general meaning of the phrase rightful subject of legislation. Nor do we think there is anything in such legislation inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States. There remains then only the further inquiry whether it is inconsistent with any part of the organic act itself.

That act established a complete system of local government. It stands as the constitution or fundamental law of the Territory. It provides for the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of government. It prescribes their functions, their manner of appointment and election, their compensation and tenure of office. In regard to the judiciary, it creates the courts, distributes the judicial power among them, and provides all the general machinery of courts, such as clerk, marshal, prosecuting attorney, &c.

It is here then, if anywhere, that we should look for anything inconsistent with the power conferred on the Probate Courts by the Territorial legislature. The ninth section of the act declares that 'the judicial power of the Territory shall be vested in a Supreme Court, District Courts, Probate Courts, and justices of the peace,' and it prescribes the organization and number of the District Courts. The judges of these are appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate of the United States. And then it declares that 'the jurisdiction of the several courts herein provided for, both appellate and original, and that of the Probate Courts, and of the justices of the peace, shall be as limited by law: Provided, That justices of the peace shall not have jurisdiction of any matter in controversy where the title or boundary of lands may be in dispute, or where the debt or sum claimed shall exceed one hundred dollars, and the said Supreme and District Courts, respectively, shall possess chancery as well as common-law jurisdiction.'

Provision is made in the same section for appeals and writs of error from the District Courts to the Supreme Court of the Territory, and from that court to the Supreme Court of the United States, but no provision is made for any such review of the decisions of the Probate Courts or of the justices of the peace.

The common-law and chancery jurisdiction here conferred on the District and Supreme Courts, is a jurisdiction very ample and very well understood. It includes almost every matter, whether of civil or criminal cognizance, which can be litigated in a court of justice. The jurisdiction of the justices of the peace is specifically limited as regards the moneyed value on which it may decide, and by the exclusion of matters concerning real estate. Of the Probate Courts it is only said that a part of the judicial power of the Territory shall be vested in them. What part? The answer to this must be sought in the general nature and jurisdiction of such courts as they are known in the history of the English law and in the jurisprudence of this country. It is a tempting subject to trace the history of the probate of wills and the administration of the personal estates of decedents, from the time that it was held to be a matter of exclusive ecclesiastical prerogative, down to the present. It is sufficient to say that through it all, to the present hour, it has been the almost uniform rule among the people, who make the common-law of England the basis of their judicial system, to have a distinct tribunal for the establishment of wills and the administration of the estates of men dying either with or without wills. These tribunals have been variously called Prerogative Courts, Probate Courts, Surrogates, Orphans' Courts, &c. To the functions more directly appertaining to wills and the administration of estates, have occasionally been added the guardianship of infants and control of their property, the allotment of dower, and perhaps other powers related more or less to the same general subject. Such courts are not in their mode of proceeding governed by the rules of the common law. They are without juries and have no special system of pleading. They may or may not have clerks, sheriffs, or other analogous officers. They were not in England considered originally as courts of record; and have never, in either that country or this, been made courts of general jurisdiction, unless the attempt to do so in this case be successful.

Looking then to the purpose of the organic act to establish a general system of government, and its obvious purpose to say what courts shall exist in the Territory, and how the judicial power shall be distributed among them, and especially to the fact that all ordinary and necessary jurisdiction is provided for in the Supreme and District Courts, and that of the justices of the peace, and that the jurisdiction of the Probate Court is left to rest on the general nature and character of such courts as they are recognized in our system of jurisprudence, is it not a fair inference that it was not intended that that court should be made one of general jurisdiction? that it should not be converted into a court in which all rights, whether civil or criminal, whether of common-law or chancery cognizance, whether involving life, or liberty, or property, should be lawfully tried and determined?

For all such cases, when tried in the District Courts, provision is made for correction of errors and mistakes by appeal to a higher court. But no such provision is made in regard to the Probate Courts, a thing which certainly would have been done if it had been supposed that all judicial power would have been vested in them.

It is supposed that a sufficient answer to this course of reasoning is found in the declaration of the ninth section of the organic act already cited, that the jurisdiction of the several courts therein provided for, 'shall be as limited by law.' The argument is that this refers to laws to be thereafter made by the Territorial legislature, and that as the power of that body extended to all rightful subjects of legislation, it extended to this of totally changing the jurisdiction of these courts. We are not prepared to say that, in deciding what law is meant in this phrase, 'as limited by law,' we are wholly to exclude laws made by the legislature of the Territory. There may be cases when that legislature conferring new rights, or new remedies, or establishing anomalous rules of proceedings within their legislative power, may direct in what court they shall be had. Nor are we called on to deny that the functions and powers of the Probate Courts may be more specifically defined by Territorial statutes within the limit of the general idea of the nature of Probate Courts, or that certain duties not strictly of that character may be imposed on them by that legislation.

But we hold that the acts of the legislature are not the only law to which we must look for the powers of any of these Territorial courts. The general history of our jurisprudence and the organic act itself are also to be considered, and any act of the Territorial legislature inconsistent with the latter must be held void. We are of opinion that the one which we have been considering is inconsistent with the general scope and spirit of that act in defining the courts of the Territory, and in the distribution of judicial power amongst them, inconsistent with the nature and purpose of a Probate Court as authorized by that act, and inconsistent with the clause which confers upon the Supreme Court and District Courts general jurisdiction in chancery as well as at common law. The fact that the judges of these latter courts are appointed by the Federal power, paid by that power-that other officers of these courts are appointed and paid in like manner-strongly repels the idea that Congress, in conferring on these courts all the powers of courts of general jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, intended to leave to the Territorial legislature the power to practically evade or obstruct the exercise of those powers by conferring precisely the same jurisdiction on courts created and appointed by the Territory.

The act of the Territorial legislature conferring general jurisdiction in chancery and at law on the Probate Courts is, therefore, void.

This view is supported by the decisions of courts of Kansas, on a similar statute; by decisions in Idaho, and by the decisions of the Supreme Court whose judgment we are here called on to reverse.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.

The CHIEF JUSTICE, not having heard the argument, took no part in the decision of this case.

title: Ferris v. Higley/Opinion of the Court


text: Talk:Ferris v. Higley/Opinion of the Court


text:
The S. B. Wheeler

APPEAL from the Circuit Court for the District of Massachusetts; the case being thus:

About one o'clock at night, on the 18th of July, 1871, a collision occurred in the Vineyard Sound, between the schooners C. F. Beebe and S. B. Wheeler, by which the Beebe was sunk and totally lost. Hereupon her owners libelled the Wheeler in the District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

The libel alleged that the crew of the Beebe saw the green light of the other schooner something more than a mile off, and over their starboard bow; that the Beebe kept her course until it became apparent that the Wheeler had changed and was still changing her course to starboard, so as to make a collision inevitable, and until she was within a hundred feet of the Wheeler, when the helm of the latter was put to starboard, as the only thing that could be done with any hope of escaping the collision or relieving the force of the blow; that under this change of helm she had fallen off about two points, when the Wheeler struck her amidships on the starboard side and cut her in two.

The answer set up that a red light was seen from the Wheeler about a mile distant and on the port bow; that the master, who was in charge of the deck, kept his vessel off until the light was two points on his port bow, and then ordered the helm to be steadied, and that afterwards, when said light was about seventy yards distant, the vessel bearing the light, and which proved to be the Beebe, suddenly fell away from the wind in the direction of the Wheeler; that the helm of the latter was immediately put hard aport, and that she fell away; but that the Beebe came down across her bows rendering a collision unavoidable.

After hearing numerous witnesses on both sides (the testimony being conflicting, and that of the claimants disclosing the fact that their vessel had no lookout at its bow, and no question of law being raised in the case), the District Court having found various facts as established by the evidence, dismissed the libel with costs, and on appeal the Circuit Court affirmed the decree. Thereupon the libellants appealed to this court, where the matter was again elaborately argued on the evidence.

Mr. J. C. Dodge, for the appellants; Messrs. G. A. Somerby and L. S. Dabney, contra.

The CHIEF JUSTICE delivered the opinion of the court.

title: The S. B. Wheeler


text: Talk:The S. B. Wheeler

title: Talk:The S. B. Wheeler


text:
The S. B. Wheeler/Opinion of the Court

Questions of fact only are presented by this appeal. There is no dispute as to the law. Two courts have already found against the appellants. It has been over and over again ruled by this court that under such circumstances the burden is on the appellant to show the error. Every presumption is in favor of the decrees below. We ought not to reverse unless the error is clear. Such is not the case here.

It is, indeed, urged that the claimants, by their own proof, established the fact that there was no lookout at the bow of the Wheeler when the collision occurred. This is so, but whether that was a contributing fault was a question of fact, and that has been twice found against the appellants.

We are entirely satisfied with all the findings.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.

title: The S. B. Wheeler/Opinion of the Court


text: Talk:The S. B. Wheeler/Opinion of the Court