Lightner v. Kimball
U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Massachusetts
Case for damages for using the invention of the plaintiff [John Lightner], known as Lightner’s axle boxes, for which he has a patent It came before the court on an agreed statement of facts in which, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the defendant [Otis Kimball] is liable to an action, it was admitted that the patent is valid, and that axle boxes substantially like those described therein are used upon certain cars of the Red Line Transit Company, so called.
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Case for damages for using the invention of the plaintiff [John Lightner], known as Lightner’s axle boxes, for which he has a patent It came before the court on an agreed statement of facts in which, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the defendant [Otis Kimball] is liable to an action, it was admitted that the patent is valid, and that axle boxes substantially like those described therein are used upon certain cars of the Red Line Transit Company, so called. A contract between certain railroad companies whose roads form a continuous line from Albany to Chicago, was put into the case, by…
1Opinion of the Court
LOWELL, District Judge.
The plaintiff contends that the transit company are the trustees or lessees of the cars, running them, or ordering them to be run, and having a special property therein which cannot be divested, even by the several railroad corporations which furnish them, until the expiration of the contract If this be the proper construction of the contract, it may be true that the transit company are liable as infringers, but it does not follow that their agent for making con-n-acts for transportation would be liable. It is a general rule that in actions of tort all the wrong-doers…
2Cited by1 opinion
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