Court Opinion

ID: 9449781
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:22:22.974752+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:58.710872
License: Public Domain

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
My brothers’ ruling that the order appealed from is an interlocutory order refusing an injunction within 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a) needlessly extends federal appellate jurisdiction over mere practice orders, at a time when increased pressures both in the district courts and in the courts of appeals make this peculiarly undesirable.
From the standpoint of authority, decision depends on whether the case is attracted by General Electric Co. v. Marvel Rare Metals Corp., 287 U.S. 430, 433, 53 S.Ct. 202, 77 L.Ed. 408 (1932), Cutting Room Appliances v. Empire Cutting Machine Co., 186 F.2d 997 (2 Cir. 1951), and Telechron, Inc. v. Parissi, 197 F.2d 757 (2 Cir. 1952), sustaining the appeal-ability of the orders there under review, or by National Machinery Co. v. Waterbury Farrel Foundry & Mach. Co., 290 F.2d 527 (2 Cir. 1961), denying it.1 In National Machinery, also a patent suit, the defendant sought leave “to amend its answer so as to assert permissive counterclaims arising out of two patents similar to those on which the plaintiff brought suit” — a request similar to that of Canadian Westinghouse here. Judge Anderson denied leave on the ground that injection of these claims would unfairly prejudice the plaintiff in getting its case to trial. We held that when a refusal to broaden an action to include a claim for an injunction is based neither on the merits nor on a supposed lack of jurisdiction or improper venue, but solely “on the wisdom of consolidating certain claims for trial,” it is “not the kind of refusal of an injunction which permits interlocutory review by the Court of Appeals under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a) (1).” I see no tenable basis for refusing to apply the principle of that decision to a refusal, on similar grounds,2 to allow *829an intervenor under F.R.Civ.Proe. 24(b) to seek relief by injunction for patent infringement and unfair competition. If anything, in the light of the wide discretion of the trial court long recognized with respect to permissive intervention, see 4 Moore, Federal Practice fffl 24.10 [4], 24.15 (1963 ed.), this case is a fortiori — particularly in view of my brothers’ sound position that we ought not regard the issue differently than if the district judge had struck the challenged portions of the proposed answer as a condition to granting leave to intervene.
Appealability must turn on the nature of the order — not on the fact that there may have been stronger reasons for what Judge Anderson did in National Machinery than for what Judge Henderson did here. The distinction taken in National Machinery was between a “refusal” based on an allegedly erroneous conclusion that the law does not permit the claim for an injunction to be heard in the action (as in General Electric, Cutting Room Appliances and Tele.chron), and one based on alleged abuse of a discretionary power over the scope of the action. Where the order is of the former type, the danger of serious harm from the court’s erroneous belief in the existence of a legal barrier to its entertaining a claim for an injunction has been thought to outweigh the general undesirability of interlocutory appeals.3 The very fact that the second type of order hinges on the trial court’s discretion is itself an indication that such orders, relating primarily to convenience in litigation, carry a lesser threat of harm. Just as the scope of review of discretionary orders is narrowed, so also should the occasions for appellate interference be limited. 'While a “refusal” of the first type will generally remit the party seeking an injunction either to a different district or even to a different system of courts, a discretionary refusal will often require no more than the filing of a separate action in the same courthouse. Such an order does not become appealable merely because, as here, circumstances peculiar to the parties will result in the applicant’s having to bring the new proceeding in another district. That, at least, is what we said in the National Machinery ease, 290 F.2d 528, where, as examination of the record indicates, precisely that situation seems to have been presented.4 Unless we are prepared to overrule that decision, this appeal must thus be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.
For reasons already indicated in part, I think the National Machinery decision was sound, and that failure to enforce the distinction there made will expand a narrow exception to the final judgment rule, intended for cases of true hardship, to include mere practice orders simply because a pleading contains the talismanic word “injunction” and although the pleader had no intention of seeking interlocutory relief.5 Reference to history is instructive as to the Congressional purpose. In the Evarts Act, the sole exception to the final judgment rule was “where, upon a hearing in equity * * an injunction shall be granted or continued by an interlocutory order or decree * * *” 26 Stat. 828 (1891). In such cases the court had brought its force to bear, and the need for immediate appeal was obvious. Four years later the exception was broadened to include cases *830“where, upon a hearing in equity * *, an injunction shall be granted, continued, refused, or dissolved by an interlocutory order or decree or an application to dissolve an injunction shall be refused * * * ” 28 Stat. 666-667 (1895). This was because the implications of “the lack of all review over the action of a single judge in denying interlocutory injunctions” “had not been adequately considered,” Frankfurter and Landis, The Business of the Supreme Court, 108-09 (1928); although the language is broader, as the General Electric case was later to hold, it seems rather plain that Congress was thinking primarily of the case where erroneous denial of a temporary injunction may cause injury quite as irreparable as an erroneous grant of one. After a retreat to the original wording in 1900, 31 Stat. 660, the 1895 version was restored in § 129 of the Judicial Code of 1911, 36 Stat. 1134. The reference to “a hearing in equity” — strongly suggesting the pressing of a demand for interlocutory relief — has suffered drafting erosion that has tended to obscure the original aim. The words “in equity” were dropped in 1925 when the section was broadened to include orders modifying or refusing to modify injunctions, 43 Stat. 937, but the omission “was not intended to remove that limitation.” Schoenamsgruber v. Hamburg American Line, 294 U.S. 454, 457 fn. 3, 55 S.Ct. 475, 476-477, 79 L.Ed. 989 (1935); Baltimore Contractors, Inc. v. Bodinger, 348 U.S. 176, 180 fn. 6, 75 S.Ct. 249, 99 L.Ed. 233 (1955). Then the words “upon a hearing” fell by one of those unexplained changes in the 1948 revision of the Judicial Code, 62 Stat. 929, which we have been wisely instructed to disregard. Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Prod. Corp., 353 U.S. 222, 227-228, 77 S.Ct. 787, 1 L.Ed.2d 786 (1957).
The Supreme Court has characterized this history of the injunction exception to the final judgment rule as reflecting “a developing need to permit litigants to effectually challenge interlocutory orders of serious, perhaps irreparable, consequence.” Baltimore Contractors, Inc. v. Bodinger, supra, 348 U.S. at 181, 75 S.Ct. at 252-253, 99 L.Ed. 233. An order granting or denying a request for a temporary injunction fits that description. So does an order striking a claim for injunctive relief on the merits or on grounds of jurisdiction or venue since, as said in a case cited in General Electric, 287 U.S. at 433, 53 S.Ct. at 203-204, 77 L.Ed. 408, “the greater includes the less.” Naivette, Inc. v. Philad Co., 54 F.2d 623 (6 Cir. 1931). Discretionary practice orders designed to avoid undue delay or confusion in the course of a particular trial do not rise to that level; a determination that a party seeking permissive intervention must press claims for injunctive relief in an action of its own presents no compelling need for interlocutory review.
If we had jurisdiction of the appeal, I would affirm. My brothers say that where the relationship between the claims and the defenses of the intervenor and those of the original defendant-is sufficiently close to permit adjudication of all claims in one suit “without unnecessary delay,” a district judge has no discretion to refuse to allow an intervenor to advance them. But “whether the intervention will unduly delay or prejudice the adjudication of the rights of the original parties” is precisely the question which Rule 24(b) entrusts to the trial judge’s discretion in deciding whether to permit the entry of an applicant whose “claim or defense and the main action have a question of law or fact in common.” The patents that Canadian Westinghouse wished to bring into the case were not patents that would have to be considered as part of the prior art; the applications for them were made some ten years after plaintiff’s patent was issued and plaintiff contended with substantial basis that, however much the district judge would necessarily learn of the art in passing upon the plaintiff’s claim, litigation of the validity and infringement of these later patents would enormously increase the length and complexity of the trial. Although there may have been less warrant for striking the *831unfair competition claims, this also seems to lie within the discretion of the trial judge, who may have been impressed with the intervenor’s slowness in asserting these, see fn. 5, and with the effect of a judgment on the claims he allowed to remain. Refusal by one of the two judges in this busy court, taking into consideration the interests of the plaintiff as F.R.Civ.Proc. 24(b) required, to assume the additional days of trial and of post-trial study needed to dispose of intervenor’s counterclaims does not become an abuse of discretion merely because it may require the intervenor to seek out the plaintiff — neither of them being without resources — in another forum and thereby in the end perhaps use more professional and judicial time.

. Since in National Machinery we expressly declined to follow the lead of Switzer Bros., Inc. v. Locklin, 207 F.2d 483 (7 Cir. 1953), cert. denied, 347 U.S. 912, 74 S.Ct. 477, 98 L.Ed. 1069 (1954), cited by my brothers, I deem it unnecessary to discuss that case or the two Ninth Circuit cases to the same effect which we mentioned. The latter have been at least qualified, if not overruled sub silentio, by Jorgensen Bros. v. Commerce-Pacific, Inc., 294 F.2d 768 (9 Cir. 1961).

. Although it would have been better if Judge Henderson had specified on which of the three grounds stated in Stewart-Warner’s motion he was acting, I think it plain, as my brothers also seem to do, that he was relying on improper enlargement of the issues. No basis was presented from which he could possibly have concluded that the patent complaints failed to state claims upon which relief could be granted, and his striking of affirmative defenses demonstrates that he could not have been relying on the argument as to venue — an argument so thoroughly blasted by the General Electric decision, supra, and many others that it ought not to have been made.

. Such an order may likewise have important precedential effect.

. The plaintiff was an Ohio corporation with its principal place of business there. The proposed amended answer did not assert any circumstances that would have allowed the defendant to sue for patent infringement in Connecticut under 28 U.S.G. § 1400(b) — even if, which seems questionable, process could have been served there upon the plaintiff.

. That is the case here. Canadian Westinghouse had suffered the alleged unfair competition by Stewart-Warner to go on for three years before it filed the proposed counterclaim, and temporary injunctions in suits for infringement of electronic patents must be the rarest of rare birds.