Case ID: us-ct-cl_54/html/0200-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice PitNey", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

WILLIAM F. BROTHERS v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [52 C. Cls., 462 ; 250 U. S., 88.]
    Judgment was rendered in favor of the defendants in the court below. On appeal the judgment was affirmed, and the Supreme Court decided:
    An unliquidated claim against the United States, under the act of June 25, 1910, chapter 423, 36 Statutes, 851, for the alleged infringement of a patent, is not assignable with the patent. Revised Statutes, section 3477.
    The essential feature of patent No. 551,614, granted to Sarah E. Brothers et al., for “ improvements in cable cranes with gravity anchors,” is a nonyielding support or anchor at one end of the cable, and a yielding, tilting, or rocking support at the opposite end, consisting of outwardly inclined shears or some equivalent structure held movably at the base, and a counterweight on the outer side.
    This invention was not infringed by the use of cableways supported by two towers, both of which were intended and constructed to be rigid, but both of which, upon the tightening of the-cables, done for the purpose of enabling the loads to clear the work as its height increased, acquired a tendency to yield with the yielding of the railroad bed beneath them,, under the increased stress.
    Findings of the Court of Claims are to be treated like the verdict of a jury, and this court is not at liberty to refer to the evidence, any more than to the opinion, for the purpose of eking out, controlling, or modifying their scope.
   Mr. Justice PitNey

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court May 19, 1919.