Doscher v. Phelps Guardant Time Lock Co. 224 N.Y. 718

Henry Doscher, Appellant, v. Phelps Guardant Time Lock Company et al., Respondents.

Doscher v. Phelps Guardant Time Loch Co., 172 App. Div. 954, affirmed.

(Argued November 13, 1918;

decided December 3, 1918.

Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Division of. the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered February 25, 1916, affirming a judgment in favor of defendants entered upon a dismissal of the complaint by the court on'trial at Special Term. The action was brought by the plaintiff, a stockholder of the Phelps Guardant Time Lock Company, to have declared a certain invention of the defendant Edwin S. Phelps, the president and general manager, to be the property of the said company, on the grounds that said Phelps had promised and agreed to give the said company the benefit of his inventions; that said invention cured a defect in a previous invention of said Phelps, for which prior invention the Phelps Guardant Time Lock Company had paid said Phelps by the issuance to him of $400,000 worth of its stock, and that under the circumstances," the relation of said Phelps to the company and the duty which he owed to it, the invention should become the. property of the company, independent of any agreement-on his part.

Henry F. Cochrane for appellant.

Adolph Sonnenthal for Phelps Guardant Time Lock Company, respondent.

William Law Stout for Edwin S. Phelps, respondent.