Star Co. v. Wheeler Syndicate, Inc. 231 N.Y. 606

Star Company, Appellant, v. The Wheeler Syndicate, Inc., Respondent.

Equity — unfair competition — when injunction restraining use of certain names and characters in cartoons offered for sale properly denied.

Star Co. v. Wheeler Syndicate, Inc., 188 App. Div. 964, affirmed.

(Argued May 5, 1921;

decided July 14, 1921.)

Appeal, by permission, from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered July 7, 1919, unanimously affirming a judgment in favor of defendant entered upon a dismissal of the complaint by the court on trial at Special Term. The plaintiff alleged in its complaint that one Fisher was its employee under a contract to work exclusively for it and that as such employee he had drawn the cartoons known as the Mutt and Jeff cartoons; that the trade mark “ Mutt and Jeff ” was originated by it and had been exclusively appropriated and used by it as a trade mark for cartoons and that it, the Star Company, was entitled exclusively to publish cartoons depicting the cartoon characters known as Mutt and Jeff. The complaint further alleged that the defendant had conspired to entice Fisher away from the employment of the Star Company and that the defendant proposed, with Fisher’s assistance, to publish and sell to newspapers a series of cartoons in violation of the Star Company’s alleged exclusive rights. Judgment was demanded that the defendant be restrained both from in any way using the name “ Mutt and Jeff ” as a title or .trade mark for any cartoons that it might offer for sale and from selling cartoons embodying or depicting the cartoon characters “ Mutt and Jeff.”

Nathan Burkan and William A. De Ford for appellant.

Charles E. Kelley for respondent.