Bata v. Bata

We are here confronted with an unfortunate family controversy between plaintiffs, the widow and only son of Thomas Bata, on the one hand, and defendant Jan Bata, Thomas’s twenty-year younger half brother, on the other. Thomas Bata (hereinafter referred to as Thomas) was an unusually capable Czech industrialist, the ninth in line of a family of shoemakers, dating from the sixteenth century. Though born in humble circumstances, he emerged from obscure beginnings as a provincial shoemaker and created a huge industrial shoe empire which had its inception in the town of Zlin, Province of Moravia,…