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entitled to the benefit of their experience and reputation for honesty and integrity, but when they left its employ such right ceased.

7. SAME CONFUSION-UNFAIR COMPETITION-EVIDENCE.

Evidence held, not to establish that defendants have so used their family name in the name of defendant corporation as to lead a person of ordinary intelligence to believe that he was dealing with plaintiff corporation, or as to exceed the boundaries of fair competition.

Appeal from Kent; Perkins, J. Submitted October 11, 1918. (Docket No. 42.) Decided December 27, 1918.

Bill by the Young & Chaffee Furniture Company against Chaffee Brothers Furniture Company and others to restrain the use of a trade-name. From a decree dismissing the bill, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

H. Monroe Dunham, for plaintiff.

Stuart E. Knappen and Wykes & Averill, for defendants.

FELLOWS, J. In 1896, Robinson J. Young and Guy W. Chaffee formed a copartnership under the firm name of Young & Chaffee Furniture Company, for the purpose of conducting a retail furniture business on Ottawa street in the city of Grand Rapids. The business seems to have quite largely consisted in the sale of furniture and house furnishings on the installment plan, and to have been successful. Defendants, Glenn D., Owen R., and Burt K. Chaffee, were brothers of Guy W. Glenn D. commenced to work for the firm about 1898 or 1899, and Owen R. and Burt K. about 1901 or 1902. None of them had to do with the management of the affairs of the partnership or the succeeding corporation later organized, except that upon the death of Guy W., about August 1, 1913, Burt K. became manager for the balance of the year. Owen

R. left the employ of the concern about 1908 and went to Oregon. On September 22, 1909, the present plaintiff was organized as a corporation under the laws of this State with $280,000 capital stock, divided into 1,800 shares of common stock and 1,000 shares of preferred, each of the par value of $100. The corporation succeeded to and took over the business of the old firm. Defendant Glenn D. Chaffee owned no stock in the corporation. Defendant Burt K. Chaffee actually owned no stock in the corporation, although 10 shares owned by his brother, Owen R., was at one time placed in his name. Defendant Owen R. Chaffee owned 71 shares of common stock and 20 shares of preferred; at one time he was elected a director of the company, but by reason of his absence in Oregon did not attend meetings.

The record fairly discloses that during the lifetime of Guy W. Chaffee he was the dominant factor in the business, and that after his death others interested in the corporation assumed its control. A few months after his death the services of Glenn D. and Burt K. were dispensed with. In January, 1914, defendants Owen R. and Burt K. Chaffee formed a copartnership under the firm name of Chaffee Brothers Furniture Company, and opened up a retail store on Division street, where they engaged in business similar to that conducted by plaintiff on Ottawa street. They had but a small amount of ready money, but it seems to be admitted on all hands that they had a reputation for honesty and probity in Grand Rapids and vicinity which aided in their venture. Their business also was a success. In July, Owen R. sold his stock in plaintiff company, and the following fall, defendant Chaffee Brothers Furniture Company was organized as a corporation under the laws of this State, with $15,000 common and $10,000 preferred stock. The common stock and $3,000 of the preferred was issued in equal

shares to defendants Owen R. Chaffee, Burt K. Chaffee, and Arnold G. Lockerby.

In the fall of 1915 defendant Young became interested in defendant company. It is to be inferred that he bought some of the preferred stock. Mr. Young sold his stock in the plaintiff company to the controlling interest; the exact date of the sale does not appear but it is to be inferred that it was after he made his investment in defendant company and the following spring. He does not appear to have been active in the plaintiff corporation, and there is no substantive proof that he was or is active in defendant corporation.

This bill was filed May 18, 1916, and seeks to restrain defendants from the use of the words "Chaffee Brothers" as a part of the corporate name, and from advertising or doing business under a name containing such words, or other words which are likely to lead the public to believe that it is dealing with plaintiff. From a decree dismissing the bill plaintiff appeals. seeking a reversal on the following grounds:

"First. Because of the statute of the State of Michigan, the same being section 9018 of the Compiled Laws of Michigan 1915, which provides as follows:

""The name assumed and by which the corporation shall be known in law; provided, No name shall be assumed already in use by any other existing corporation of this State, or corporation lawfully carrying on business in this State or so nearly similar as to lead to uncertainty and confusion.'

"Second. Because the defendants have violated the duty to use their name so as not to prevent confusion between their house and goods and the house and goods of the plaintiff in the same business.

"Third. Because of the similarity of names, defendant's use of its corporate name is causing unfair competition as against the plaintiff."

A comparison of the names of these two corporations does not persuade us that from, the names alone

uncertainty and confusion is liable to arise. We think the person of ordinary intelligence would quite likely assume from the two names that they were not one and the same company. That there might be some confusion to the careless or indifferent reader of them is possible. But a court of equity should not issue its stringent writ of injunction upon such bare possibilities. We are impressed that relief under this statute alone should not be had. Michigan Savings Bank v. Dime Savings Bank, 162 Mich. 297 (139 Am. St. Rep. 558); Detroit Savings Bank v. Highland Park State Bank of Detroit, 201 Mich. 601; Supreme Lodge K. of P. v. Improved Order K. of P., 113 Mich. 133 (38 L. R. A. 658). The secretary of State evidently was not impressed that confusion would arise; and while his determination is not final it is a question for his determination in the first instance.

The remaining questions may naturally be solved together. The law does not favor monopolies. Honest competition should not be stifled or prevented. It is unfair competition, unfair trade, which courts of equity prevent by injunction. This case must stand or fall upon the question of whether this record makes out a case of unfair trade. It was stated by the master of the rolls in the case of Croft v. Day, 7 Beav. 84:

"It has been very correctly said, that the principle, in these cases, is this: that no man has a right to sell his own goods as the goods of another. You may express the same principle in a different form, and say that no man has a right to dress himself in colours, or adopt and bear symbols, to which he has no peculiar or exclusive right, and thereby personate another person, for the purpose of inducing the public to suppose, either that he is that other person, or that he is connected with and selling the manufacture of such other person, while he is really selling his own. It is perfectly manifest, that to do these things is to commit a fraud, and a very gross fraud."

One may dispose of the right to use his name in connection with a certain business; he may so circumscribe himself as to be estopped from claiming the right to its use in that business; but generally speaking one has the right to use his own name; he may not use it in such a way as to lead the public to the belief that they are dealing with another, or that his wares are the wares of another; he may not by any artifice so use his name as to deceive the public into the belief that his establishment is the establishment of another, thereby bringing to himself profit not properly appertaining to himself and his business, and thus inflicting damage on his competitor. It was said by Justice Devens, speaking for the court in Russia Cement Co. v. LePage, 147 Mass. 206 (17 N. E. 304, 9 Am. St. Rep. 685):

"A person cannot make a trade-mark of his own name, and thus debar another having the same name from using it in his business, if he does so honestly, and without any intention to appropriate wrongfully the good-will of a business already established by others of the name. Every one has the absolute right to use his own name honestly in his own business for the purpose of advertising it, even though he may thereby incidentally interfere with and injure the business of another having the same name. In such case the inconvenience or loss to which those having a common right to it are subjected is damnum absque injuria. But although he may thus use his name, he cannot resort to any artifice or do any act calculated to mislead the public as to the identity of the business, firm or establishment, or of the article produced by them, and thus produce injury to the other beyond that which results from the similarity of name."

It was said by Lord Esher, master of the rolls, in Turton v. Turton, L. R. 42 Ch. Div. 128:

"Therefore the proposition goes to this length; that if one man is in business and has so carried on his business that his name has become a value in the market, another man must not use his own name. If that

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