Court Opinion

ID: 9446467
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:54:39.843277+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:39.266840
License: Public Domain

FINNEGAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
An opinion in this case, written by me, and in which Judge Major and Judge Schnackenberg joined with me, was handed down July 1, 1958. Now my two colleagues have changed their position, and on rehearing ordered withdrawal of our earlier unanimous opinion. Since I adhere to my original position of refusing the peremptory writ of mandamus in this case, I am explaining my reasons for dissenting.
At the outset, I underscore two items. (1) The record underlying this current majority opinion has remained unchanged since the day when we three judges handed down our first Blaski opinion. (2) John F. Blaski, MPH Manufacturing Corporation, Inc., Peter S. Peder-*325sen, Peter S. Pedersen, Jr., co-partners d/b/a Central Farm Equipment Company, petitioners here, had earlier, October 3, 1955, sought a writ of mandamus in our Court to expunge Judge Tehan’s order transferring their case brought in the Eastern District of Wisconsin against Inland Steel Products Company, LeRoy Hermann and Robert Anderson, defendants, from the Eastern District of Wisconsin to the Northern District of Illinois for consolidation with other suits then pending in the latter District Court. Those eases involve the same patent as the case at bar. Judge Schnackenberg joined with Judge Lindley in an order, entered October 3,1955, denying the petition of Blaski, et al. for mandamus. The petition for a writ of mandamus in that case shows Blaski, et al. challenged the power of Judge Tehan to transfer, or in the alternative, claimed the District Judge abused his discretion.
Ex parte Blaski, 5 Cir., 1957, 245 F.2d 737 is the Fifth Circuit’s opinion denying leave to file a petition for a writ of mandamus to vacate the order entered by the United States District Court in Texas transferring the case at bar to the Northern District of Illinois. Judge Jones, speaking for the Fifth Circuit, when rejecting the petition presented by Blaski, pointed out (245 F.2d 737):
“The movants here, who were plaintiffs in the district court, have their residence in the Northern District of Illinois. They instituted suit in the district court for the Northern District of Texas against several defendants, all of whom reside in the Northern District of Texas. * * * The defendants made a motion to transfer the cause, pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. § 1404(a), to the Northern District of Illinois. In their motion the defendants stated that their witnesses were much closer to the court in Illinois than to the court in Texas. They also state, among other averments, that there is pending in the district court for the Northern District of Illinois a consolidated action in which the plaintiffs in the Texas suit were charging infringement of the same patent as was involved in the suit in Texas. It was shown that in the action in the Northern District of Illinois much pre-trial information and evidence had been developed which would be relevant in the ease commenced in the Northern District of Texas. The defendants waived their right to be sued in the Northern District of Texas and consented to the consolidation of the action with the cause pending in Illinois. * * *
“The plaintiffs say that none of the defendants reside in Illinois and have not committed in Illinois any acts of infringement, that process issued in Illinois could not have been served on the defendants and therefore the action could not ‘have been brought’ in the district to which it was transferred. The attempted waiver, the plaintiffs say, is ineffectual.” (Italics supplied.)
As I understand Judge MAJOR’S opinion in this rehearing, he holds that unless there is venue under 28 U.S.C.A. § 1400 in at least two forums, a trial judge is restrained from basing any order of transfer on 28 U.S.C.A. § 1404(a). In reaching that result Judge MAJOR disagrees, as I view it, with the Fifth Circuit that a transfer is proper on motion of a defendant who consents to the transfer (by waiving venue in the transferor court) even though the defendant is not amenable to venue in the transferee court selected by such movant, I doubt if any one would seriously urge that the Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Corp., 1957, 353 U.S. 222, 77 S.Ct. 787, 1 L.Ed.2d 786 holding precludes all transfers of patent cases when § 1404(a) is involved, especially after noticing the words “any civil action” used by Congress in § 1404 (a).
Literally speaking, the defendants-litigants in the case before us, “waived their right to be sued in the Northern District of Texas” [See 245 F.2d 737]; they did not, with all deference to Judge *326MAJOR, waive venue “in a forum in which an action had not been and could not be properly brought by an opposing party.”
Venue under 28 U.S.C.A. § 1400(b) means only the place where these defendants could require the case to be tried and, as a word “venue” refers neither to jurisdiction nor power to decide the case. Locality of trial is a personal privilege which these defendants could waive. In re Josephson, 1 Cir., 1954, 218 F.2d 174, 184-185, and cases there collected. Venue for commencing patent suits is predetermined by § 1400(b), but there is nothing in that section contained preventing the place of trial from being shifted in accordance with the yardsticks of “the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the interest of justice,” provided by § 1404. These Texas defendants have consented to consolidation of the Texas suit with those long since pending in Illinois.
I think the Fifth Circuit penetrated the problem at hand and soundly concluded that:
“The rule which to us seems the better reasoned and which has been adopted by the majority of the courts, permits the transfer upon the motion or with the consent of the defendants even though they could not have been served with the process of the transferee court * * ” (245 F.2d 737, 738).
Judicial discretion came into play after the defendant waived venue in Texas and consented to the consolidation with Illinois pending litigation on the same patents. Rather than abuse of discretion I find the District Judge in Texas displayed some sound practical common sense. Indeed I think the bare words “where it might have been brought” in § 1404(a), are being used here as an intellectual go-cart just to wheel the case back again to Texas. This case ought to be resolved on its peculiar facts and against the background of lawsuits begun by Blaski, in Wisconsin and Texas. As I have previously said, there appears to be no legalistic reason just why the respondent Judge should overrule the Fifth Circuit. I would deny the petition for writ of mandamus just as I would have struck down a petition in the nature of a writ of prohibition, which at least would have been potentially more appropriate.