Mecky v. Grabowski’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 4 district ·

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““This principle, however, that a court of equity, having taken cognizance of a case, will dispose of the whole controversjq even though there may be phases of it as to which, by themselves, it would not have jurisdiction, has application, not to the jurisdiction of the court under the Constitution and statutes, but to its jurisdiction as a court of equity, and relates principally to the application of legal as well as equitable remedies, where there is one ground of proper equity jurisdiction. The contention of the defendant as to the unfair competition _j sustained in the case of Cushman v. Atlantis Fountain Pen Co. et al., 164 Fed. 94 , in which it was held by Judge Lowell, of the Circuit Court, that a bill to restrain the infringement of a patent, which presents a federal question, does not draw within the jurisdiction of tbe Circuit Court a further issue as to unfair competition in trade, although it grows out of the same acts of defendant. In the case at bar, the question of unfair competition can be fully and properly determined by the proper tribunal, entirely independent of a question of patent infringement, and the complainant has full recourse to the state courts for that purpose.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Woerheide v. H. W. Johns-Manville Co.

2. ““But it is an established rule in equity that, having taken cognizance of a case upon any ground of which jurisdiction is given, the court will proceed to dispose of the whole controversy between the parties, even though there may be certain phases of it as to which, by themselves, it would not; and that rule is applicable here. The unfair competition of which complaint is made is not a distinct and independent act, leading to an inquiry into different and unrelated transactions, constituting a separate cause of action. It is rather an aggravation of the infringement, by which the defendants, according to the-bill, have not only copied the principle of the patented device, but the very form of it, taking advantage of the trade which has been worked up for it, and palming off their own upon the public as that of the complainants. It is thus merely an added feature, going along with the rest to show the extent and aggravated character of the infringement which the bill seeks to enjoin.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Shrauger v. Phillip Bernard Co.