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2,032,084
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Feb. 25, 1936
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Brush assembly
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Irvie H. Dunham |
Racine, WI |
The assignee was acquired by Howard Industries in 1945, and in 1948 Howard Industries sued Rae Motor Corp. for infringing this patent; the two companies reached an agreement where Rae conceded infringement and also agreed to refrain from using a case design which Howard Industries alleged was "confusingly similar" to that used by Howard. Five years later, in 1954, Howard Industries initiated a new legal action against Rae alleging that the previous agreement had been breached by Rae's continuing to make motors using the same case design. The portion of the lawsuit regarding liability was severed and tried separately; Howard won both in the District Court and on appeal. Damages were then assessed against Rae of about $100,000, and again Rae appealed, and again, lost. The Master responsible for setting damages noted, and the Appeals Court agreed, that "On all of the evidence, defendant's breach of the August 15, 1949 contract was neither unconscious nor inadvertent", and as such the damages were assessed liberally, "to protect the victim and prevent a wrongdoer from escaping the consequences of his own conduct." Following the original 1949 agreement, Howard's sales of this type of motor dropped by two-thirds, whereas Rae's sales doubled. Rae argued that their motors were improved and the casing was immaterial to their increased sales, but that argument was rejected because Rae had, in accepting the original agreement, accepted the supposition that the motor casings were important to its sales efforts. The Appeals Court implied that the Master could have been substantially more liberal in assessing damaging and they would still be upheld. |