Hazel-Atlas Glass Co. v. Hartford-Empire Co.

Hazel-Atlas Glass Co. v. Hartford-Empire Co.

Opinion

 [*239]  [**998]  [***1252]    [242]  MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case involves the power of a Circuit Court of Appeals, upon proof that fraud was perpetrated on it by a successful litigant, to vacate its own judgment entered at a prior term and direct  [243]  vacation of a District Court's decree entered pursuant to the Circuit Court of Appeals' mandate.

Hazel-Atlas commenced the present suit in November, 1941, by filing in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals a petition for leave to file a bill of review in the District Court to set aside a judgment entered by that Court against Hazel in 1932 pursuant to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals' mandate. Hazel contended that the Circuit Court of Appeals' judgment had been obtained by fraud and supported this charge with affidavits and exhibits. Hartford-Empire, in whose favor the challenged judgment had been entered, did not question the appellate court's power to consider the petition, but filed counter affidavits and exhibits. After a hearing the Circuit Court concluded that since the alleged fraud had been practiced on it rather than the District [****4]  Court it would pass on the  [*240]  issues of fraud itself instead of sending the case to the District Court. An order was thereupon entered denying the petition as framed but granting Hazel leave to amend the prayer of the petition to ask that the Circuit Court itself hear and determine the issue of fraud. Hazel accordingly amended, praying that the 1932 judgments against it be vacated and for such other relief as might be just. Hartford then replied and filed additional exhibits and affidavits. The following facts were shown by the record without dispute.

In 1926 Hartford had pending an application for a patent on a machine which utilized a method of pouring glass into molds known as "gob feeding." The application, according to the Circuit Court, "was confronted with apparently insurmountable Patent Office opposition." To help along the application, certain officials and attorneys of Hartford determined to have published in a trade journal an article  [**999]  signed by an ostensibly disinterested expert which would describe the "gob feeding" device as a remarkable advance in the art of fashioning glass by machine. Accordingly these officials prepared an article entitled [****5]  "Introduction of Automatic Glass Working  [***1253]  Machinery; How Received by Organized Labor," which referred to "gob feeding" as one of the two "revolutionary devices" with which workmen skilled in bottle-blowing had been confronted since they had organized.  After unsuccessfully attempting to persuade the President of the Bottle Blowers' Association to sign this article, the Hartford officials, together with other persons called to their aid, procured the signature of one William P. Clarke, widely known as National President of the Flint Glass Workers' Union. Subsequently, in July 1926, the article was published in the National Glass Budget, and in October 1926 it was introduced as part of the record in support of the pending application in the Patent Office.  [*241]  January 3, 1928, the Patent Office granted the application as Patent No. 1,655,391.

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