Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

636 F.2d 9

Docket No. 80-1410.

Chart House, Inc. v. Bornstein

First Circuit Court of Appeals

Submitted Oct. 10, 1980.

Decided Dec. 11, 1980.

First Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1980-12-11

1 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“interject its personal evidentiary observations.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including United States v. Teixeira, Hersch v. United States

“I don't know how many times I drove by [the defendant's business], and I was never tempted to stop — . . . . It struck me as one of those selfcontained apartment units . . . .”

quoted by 1 later decision, including United States v. Teixeira

Relies on Yale Electric Corp. v. Robertson · Stork Restaurant, Inc. v. Sahati · Tisch Hotels, Inc. v. Americana Inn, Inc.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1980-12-11

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently March 2023

3 federal appellate · 4 district ·

5019801990200020102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1A. Lane McGovern, Michael J. Beauty-man, Ropes & Gray, Boston, Mass., George B. Newitt, Denis A. Berntsen, and Allegretti, Newitt, Witcoff & McAndrews, Chicago, Ill., on brief, for appellant.

¶2Before COFFIN, Chief judge, ALDRICH and PELL,* Circuit Judges.

¶4*10ALDRICH, Senior Circuit Judge.

¶5This action, seeking, inter alia, preliminary and permanent injunctions is brought by Chart House, Inc., owner of registered service marks, The Chart House and Chart House as logos for use in restaurant and bar services,1 against defendant’s use of the name Chart House Village in connection with a “shopping, living and dining complex” in Hyannis, Massachusetts. Following various discovery procedures plaintiff pressed for the preliminary injunction. After hearing, this was denied, and plaintiff appeals.

¶6There is no claim that the names do not sufficiently coincide, or that plaintiff was guilty of laches. Defendant concedes that he knew of plaintiff’s name before he finally adopted his. The court’s sole dispositive findings were the following:

“[Defendant’s] complex at present harbors2 only a small salad bar restaurant. It is not centrally located in any metropolitan or tourist area where plaintiff is, or intends to be, doing business .... This court finds there is little likelihood of confusion between the two establishments in this action. Plaintiff has failed to establish irreparable injury and probability of success on the merits.”

¶7This was a very inadequate, as well as inaccurate, account. The complaint alleged, and defendant did not deny, that plaintiff has operated restaurant and bar services under the “Chart House” name since 1962; that it presently operates thirty-five “Chart House” restaurants throughout the United States, including six (in total) in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode island; that its annual gross exceeds $30,000,-000; and that it annually spends in excess of $300,000 for advertising and promotion, mostly local in nature, and featuring its marks. By failure to respond, also, to plaintiff’s requests for admission of facts, F.R.Civ.P. 36(a), defendant has further admitted that Chart House Village is a living, eating and shopping complex, having, in addition to fifty-two apartments,- sixteen stores and one restaurant, with space reserved for a second; that “Chart House” restaurants are “well and favorably known throughout the United States” and are identified with the plaintiff; that plaintiff operates a “Chart House” restaurant in Boston; that both Chart House Village and Chart House advertise on radio and in newspapers and publications throughout the Boston and Cape Cod areas; that Chart House customers in Boston include tourists to the Cape Cod area and Boston and Cape Cod residents, and that Chart House Village is visited by tourists and residents of both areas, with tourists coming from all parts of the country.

¶8These admissions were confirmed and supplemented by depositions of three of the complex’s sixteen shopkeepers,3 one of whom estimated that his shop averaged probably two thousand customers a week.

¶9At the hearing, in response to this showing, the court made the following remarks:

“It’s residential. The people living there wouldn’t be confused. It isn’t as though you have a restaurant, a Chart House Restaurant in a hotel where you have a lot of transitory traffic.
“It really isn’t on the beaten track at all .... I don’t know anybody who could be drawn there .... I don’t know how many times I drove by there, and I was never tempted to stop- .... It struck me as one of those selfcontained apartment units . ... ”

¶10Even if the court’s driving-by observations were not contradicted by the agreed-*11to record of what was inside,4 his ultimate findings constituted altogether too narrow an approach. The fact that defendant did not plan to build close to plaintiff’s establishment, a matter that concerned the court during the hearing,5 is not the sole issue. A junior user that seeks to “borrow . . . the owner’s reputation,” Yale Elec. Corp. v. Robertson, 2 Cir., 1928, 26 F.2d 972, 974 (L. Hand, J.), demonstrates by its conduct that confusion is intended. Even if this element of intent is not shown, likelihood of confusion may reach as far as the mark’s reputation. Tisch Hotels, Inc. v. Americana Inn, Inc., 7 Cir., 1965, 350 F.2d 609, 612-14; Stork Restaurant, Inc. v. Sahati, 9 Cir., 1948, 166 F.2d 348, 358. There would seem a special likelihood of confusion where there is a recognizable mutuality of potential customers.

¶11While not expressing a final view on the merits, we hold that as a matter of law plaintiff has shown itself entitled to a preliminary injunction. Reversed and remanded to another judge, since there have been findings, for such entry and for further proceedings consistent herewith. Costs to appellants.

/636/f2d/9 · .json · Public domain