MR. JUSTICE PITNEY delivered the opinion of the court.
In October, 1913, Frederic E. Baldwin, a citizen of New York, together with the present petitioner John Simmons Company, a corporation and citizen of that State, brought suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania against The Grier Brothers Company, a corporation and citizen of the latter State, charging infringement of reissued letters patent No. 13,542, issued to and owned by Baldwin and under which the Simmons Company was sole licensee, for certain improvements in acetylene gas lamps intended for various uses, especially that of miners' lanterns. The bill charged also unfair competition with plaintiffs by the sale of lamps made to resemble the Baldwin lamp manufactured under the patent. The District Court granted a preliminary injunction as to unfair competition but reserved the question of patent infringement for final hearing.
In May, 1913, Baldwin had brought suit (John Simmons Company intervening) upon the same reissue patent in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against Abercrombie & Fitch Company (Justrite Company, intervening), and that court
Soon after this, plaintiffs herein petitioned the District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania for leave to file what was called a "bill of review" against its decree of January 5, 1916. The court in the first instance refused, but without prejudice to an application to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit for leave to file such bill. Upon application that court granted plaintiffs leave to make the application to the District Court, and authorized the latter court to take action thereon. Under this leave, application was renewed to the District Court, the proposed "bill of review" being at the same time presented, and with leave of the court filed. This bill sets out the original bill and the proceedings had thereunder, as above recited; also the proceedings in the suit in the Second Circuit and the final decision of this court therein; alleging these as "new facts" that had arisen since the decree entered in the District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania on the 5th of January, 1916, and as showing that that decree was erroneous and contrary to law, in so far as (pursuant to the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit) it dismissed the bill as to infringement of the re-issue
Afterwards, John Simmons Company by leave filed a supplemental bill setting up that it had acquired from Baldwin all his rights in the reissue patent including all claims for damages and profits on account of the infringement. Defendant having answered this, testimony was taken to show the structural identity of the "Justrite" and the "Grier" lamps, and the cause came to hearing, with the result that the District Court found substantial identity between the two lamps in all essential features of construction, sustained the right of plaintiffs to maintain the bill of review, and held that its former decree, entered pursuant to the mandate of the Circuit Court of Appeals, so far as it held the reissue patent invalid, should be vacated and set aside and a decree entered sustaining the validity of claim 4 of the reissue, finding defendant guilty of infringement thereof, and plaintiffs entitled to an accounting of profits and a perpetual injunction.
The District Court, as will appear from an excerpt from its opinion reported in a note to the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals, 265 Fed. 483, treated the case as one based upon a true bill of review, and this as resting not upon new matter that had arisen since the decree but upon error of law apparent on the face of the record without further examination of matters of fact.
The Circuit Court of Appeals, upon a recital of the different steps in the litigation, regarded the situation as one of plaintiffs' own creation, for the reason that after that court's decision on the original bill but before the mandate went down, although apprised of the contrary decision of the District Court for the Southern District of New York in a cause to which they were parties, plaintiffs made no request to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to withhold its mandate; that, after the mandate went down and before a decree pursuant to it was entered in the court below, they knew of the affirmance of the decision of the District Court of New York by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, yet made no request to either court in the Third Circuit to have the entry of a decree withheld; that on the contrary, with knowledge that this court had under consideration a petition for certiorari in the Second Circuit case, they prepared and of their own motion caused to be entered on January 5, 1916, the decree dismissing their suit as to the patent infringement; and after this court on January 10, 1916, granted the certiorari, they allowed the term to end without moving to suspend, open, or vacate the decree of January 5. The court held that in effect, so far as plaintiffs were concerned, that decree was a consent decree,
The cases cited are to the effect that, in the application of the ancient rule of practice in equity, based upon Lord Bacon's first ordinance (Story Eq. Pl., 6th ed., § 404), a change in the authoritative rule of law, resulting from a decision by this court announced subsequent to the former decree, neither demonstrates an "error of law apparent" upon the face of that decree nor constitutes new matter in pais justifying a review.
But a bill of review is called for only after a final decree — one that finally adjudicates upon the entire merits, leaving nothing further to be done except the execution of it. If it be only interlocutory, the court at any time before final decree may modify or rescind it. Story Eq. Pl., §§ 408, a, 421, 425. In the so-called bill of review herein, it is in terms alleged that the decree of the District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, entered July 24, 1914, was an interlocutory decree. The same is alleged as to the decree of January 5, 1916. Both allegations
The decree of July 24, 1914, although following a "final hearing", was not a final decree. It granted to plaintiffs a permanent injunction upon both grounds, but an accounting was necessary to bring the suit to a conclusion upon the merits. An appeal taken to the Circuit Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction, under § 129 Judicial Code, extended to the revision of interlocutory decrees granting injunctions, followed by the decision of that court reversing in part and affirming in part, did not result in a decree more final than the one reviewed. The prayer for relief based upon infringement of patent and that based upon unfair competition in trade were but parts of a single suit in equity. The decree entered pursuant to the decision of the appellate court, did not bring the suit to a conclusion for either purpose. As to unfair competition, it evidenced a quasi-definitive decision in plaintiffs' favor, but an inquiry before a master still was necessary before final decree could pass; an inquiry not formal or ministerial but judicial, in order to ascertain the amount of the damages to be awarded. As to the claim of patent infringement, the decree evidenced a quasi-definitive decision adverse to plaintiffs, which, if nothing occurred to prevent, would in due course be carried into the final decree. But it did not constitute a separation of the cause, nor dismiss defendant from the jurisdiction for any purpose; necessarily this decision remained in abeyance until the cause should be ripe for final decree; there was nothing to take the case out of the ordinary rule that there can be but one final decree in a suit in equity.
Regarding, therefore, the decree of January 5, 1916, as an interlocutory not a final one, there is neither technical nor substantial ground for applying to it the rules pertaining to a bill of review, and the bill herein called such is to be treated as essentially a petition for rehearing. By the 69th Equity Rule (226 U.S. 669) such a petition is in order at the term of the entry of the final decree; and, of course, if an interlocutory decree be involved, a
As the decree in question was entered pursuant to the mandate of an appellate court, proper deference to its authority required that a proceeding to reopen it, whether by rehearing or review, should be first referred to that tribunal. Southard v. Russell, 16 How. 547, 570-571; In re Potts, 166 U.S. 263, 267; National Brake & Electric Co. v. Christensen, 254 U.S. 425, 430-431.
That having been done in this case, and leave for the purpose obtained (leave to grant a "review" fairly included any step short of that), what obstacle stood in the way of correcting the decree? The suit was still pending; plaintiffs applied promptly after the decision of this court in the Abercrombie & Fitch Co. suit, 245 U.S. 198. It was eminently proper that the decree in the present suit should be made to conform to that decision, in the absence of some special obstacle. We cannot assent to the view of the court below that plaintiffs may be regarded as consenting to the decree of January 5, 1916; they simply accepted an adverse decision as to a part of their suit, not open to further appeal at their instance, and proceeded in the orderly mode to pursue their suit as to the rest. They were not guilty of laches for omitting at that stage to make application to this court for allowance of a writ of certiorari. That mode of review is not a right of the party, but lies in this court's discretion; peradventure the very fact that a final decree had not yet been entered might have been deemed a sufficient ground for refusing the writ. Hamilton-Brown Shoe Co. v. Wolf Brothers & Co., 240 U.S. 251, 254, 257-258.
Our decision in Abercrombie & Fitch Co. v. Baldwin, 245 U.S. 198, must be taken as not only demonstrating that the Circuit Court of Appeals erred in its disposition of this case upon the first appeal (219 Fed. 735), but that
Decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, and that of the District Court affirmed; and the cause remanded to that court for further proceedings in conformity to this opinion.
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