Court Opinion

ID: 9445967
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:42:32.499966+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:28.329866
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Chief Judge
(concurring).
While I do not particularly object to a remand for trial, since a trial of the issue of damages is necessary in any event and more detailed findings may well be reassuring, yet I think it should be noted that this is a bit of a luxury, if not a waste of time. If, as my brothers suggest, a trial may develop that Pathe Laboratories had no statutory lien on the films in question, then of course the New York foreclosure passed nothing to the purchasers and to the defendant. But the district court’s conclusion that plaintiff’s copyright interest was not fore*956closed because it was not personally-served leads to the same consequences. My brothers apparently wish to avoid this adjudication as to the New York action. Logically I should think adjudication as to the necessity of personal service might come first, since it concerns matters of the court’s jurisdiction. Herein I see no reflection on the New York court’s default judgment (indeed, hardly as much as in my brothers’ suggestion of no basic lien at all for the state action); but in any event I believe it a necessary question for our determination. And Judge BICKS’ answer I think correct for the reasons he states. Hence his decision must stand in any event.
Perhaps the present judgment is susceptible to too broad an interpretation; on final judgment it should be made wholly clear that the defendant is enjoined from selling exhibition rights in the films, not from selling the physical films themselves.