Chandler & Price Co. v. Brandtjen & Kluge, Inc., 296 U.S. 53 (1935)

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Chandler & Price Co. v. Brandtjen & Kluge, Inc.

No. 11

Argued October 16, 17, 1935
Decided November 11, 1935
296 U.S. 53

Syllabus

1. On application to intervene in equity, it is the better practice to present the applicant’s proposed answer. P. 56.

2. In a patent infringement suit brought against the user of a machine, the manufacturer of the accused article was permitted to intervene. It thereupon answered, jointly with the defendant, denying infringement and challenging the plaintiff’s patent, and furthermore set up, separately, a counterclaim against the plaintiff for infringement of another patent, owned solely by the intervener. There was no suggestion that the defendant had any interest in the counterclaim, or that the issues tendered by or that might arise out of it could not be adjudged in a separate suit.

Held:

(1) That the facts alleged in the petition for intervention were insufficient to show that the intervener was the real party in interest or entitled to intervene as a matter of equitable right. P. 56.

(2) The counterclaim was rightly dismissed; the intervener is limited to the field of litigation open to the original parties. P. 57.

(3) Equity Rule 30 does not authorize one given the privilege to intervene as party defendant to set up and enforce against the plaintiff a counterclaim not available to the original defendant and in which that defendant has no interest. P. 58.

(4) Equity Rule 37, declaring that anyone claiming "an interest in the litigation" may be permitted to assert his right by intervention, means an interest in matters then in controversy between the plaintiff and original defendant; the purpose for which permission to intervene may be given is that the applicant may be put in position to assert in that suit a right of his in respect of something there in dispute between the original parties. P. 59.

75 F.2d 472 affirmed.

Certiorari, 295 U.S. 724, to review the affirmance of a decree dismissing a counterclaim set up by an intervener in a patent infringement suit.