Opinion ID: 406456
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Airport's Appeal

Text: 8 Airport presents two questions on appeal. First, it argues that the district court erred in granting summary judgment against Airport on liability because the record contains no evidence that Airport-as opposed to Tex-Mex-ever used the trademarks in violation of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1114(1). 3 As stated by Airport, the legal issue is whether mere ownership of real estate upon which an infringement of a trademark takes place is sufficient to assess liability on the owner. 9 The district court must render summary judgment if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). The defendants' joint response to Holiday Inns' motion for partial summary judgment raised no genuine issue as to any material fact. As Airport admits, the question presented on appeal is purely a legal one. However, we decline to consider even this issue of law because we conclude that Airport did not properly present it in the court below. We realize that our rule against considering issues raised for the first time on appeal can give way when a pure question of law is involved and the refusal to consider it will result in a miscarriage of justice. See Martinez v. Matthews, 544 F.2d 1233, 1237 (5th Cir. 1976). However, we perceive no possibility of such a miscarriage here. 10 The only legal argument pressed by Airport individually in the joint responsive motion of defendants below was that Airport had purchased the Great Sign with the knowledge of and acquiescence of Plaintiff and without any restriction being placed thereon by Plaintiff against Airport Holiday Corporation, and the Plaintiff has waived or is estopped to claim any trademark violation against Airport Holiday Corporation. This brief waiver and estoppel argument, apparently predicated upon a theory that Holiday Inns had a duty expressly to forbid Airport from using its trademarks, did not deter the district court from holding Airport liable, as undisputed owner of the Great Sign and the rest of the Holiday Hotel property, for the infringement. 11 Airport now seeks to obtain a reversal of the court's judgment by suggesting that a mere owner of real estate is not chargeable with trademark infringements or other torts committed by another party operating on the owner's property. As sole support for this allegation of error, Airport cites Kinnear-Weed Corp. v. Humble Oil & Refining Co., 324 F.Supp. 1371, 1381 (S.D.Tex.1969), aff'd, 441 F.2d 631 (5th Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 941, 92 S.Ct. 285, 30 L.Ed.2d 255 (1971), in which the court held that a 'non-operator,' as simply the owner of an interest in realty (the leasehold estate) in a drilling venture was not responsible for the drilling contractor's infringement of the patent on a drilling bit. 12 Apart from obvious dissimilarities between the facts of Kinnear-Weed and those of the case before us, 4 our rejection of this appeal stands upon Airport's failure to present this authority or any legal argument derived from it to the court below. Although the defendants took over a year to reply to the motion for summary judgment, neither in that response nor at any other time did Airport attempt to forestall an adverse decision by providing the district judge with authority or argument in the vein now sought to be explored. Our discretion to entertain a legal argument presented for the first time on appeal is a right to prevent a clear miscarriage of justice apparent from the record, and not a right to afford a defeated litigant another day in court because he thinks that if he were given the opportunity to try his case again upon a different theory he might prevail. Miller v. Avirom, 384 F.2d 319, 323 (D.C.Cir.1967) (quoting Helvering v. Rubinstein, 124 F.2d 969, 972 (8th Cir. 1942)). That Airport's appeal lies from a summary judgment does not diminish the importance of this insistence upon thorough presentation of issues in the district court. 13 Similarly, Airport's second point of error falls victim to Airport's want of caution in the proceedings below. The court's award of $96,795.00 against Airport and Tex-Mex, jointly and severally, included $11,464.50 in profits obtained from the infringement. The court derived this figure by computing thirty percent 5 of $38,215.00, the amount to which the parties stipulated as profit of the Defendants during the period of the infringement. Airport now claims on appeal that Holiday Inns is not entitled to recover profits from Airport because it never proved that Airport actually received these profits. 14 Yet the record clearly shows that Airport, acting with Tex-Mex through a single attorney, signed a pretrial stipulation on October 9, 1979, conceding that (d)uring the period of March 1, 1975 to January 1, 1979, the profits of the Defendants were $38,215.00. In fact, although Airport complains of the trial court's confusion in treating Airport and Tex-Mex identically instead of as separate parties, the entire stipulation refers to the Defendants as one party. It even describes the steps taken by the Defendants to modify the Great Sign. At no time before or during the trial on damages, so far as the record shows, did Airport claim that it had not received profits earned by the hotel that it admittedly owned. 15 As Holiday Inn points out, Section 35 of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1117, provides that (i)n assessing profits the plaintiff shall be required to prove defendant's sales only; defendant must prove all elements of cost or deduction claimed. In any event, Airport stipulated its profits as a defendant and is bound by that agreement. E.g. Morelock v. NCR Corp., 586 F.2d 1096, 1107 (6th Cir. 1978), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 906, 99 S.Ct. 1995, 60 L.Ed.2d 375 (1979); A. Duda & Sons Cooperative Association v. United States, 504 F.2d 970, 975 (5th Cir. 1974).