Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/399

 BIGELOW CAKPET 00. V. DOBSON. 387 �The master has not so dealt with the evidence presented to him, and has, therefore, f allen into error in his conclusion. He has found nominal damages only in favor of the complainants, although they furnished proof by which the damages claimed by them might, to Bome extent at least, be legally measured. �In this category is the evidence of the number of pieces and yards of the complainants' carpets manufactured during the season of its first introduction upon the market, the cost per yard of their manufacture, and the priees at which they were sold in the market ; the number of pieces and yards of infringing carpets made and sold by the respond- ents in the following season, and the very large decline in the com- plainants' sales during this period. It furniahes the means of accu- rate computation of the complainants* profits, and of the extent to which the market was occupied by the respondents. Ail that is left for presumption is that the infringing carpets displaced in the mar- ket the complainants' carpets, and hence that the profits which would have acerued to them upon the quantity of carpets put upon the market is the measure of their damages. �This presumption, as against a wrong-doer, is not unreasonable, and it has the sanction of numerous decisions. Putnam v. Lomax, 9 Ped. Eep. 448; American Saw Co. v. Emerson, 8 Fed. Eep. 806; McComb v.Brodie, 2 0. G. 117; Westlake v. Cartier, 4 0. G. 636. �Upon this basis there is no difficulty in stating an aceount against the respondents ; and this is the only one upon which, under the evi- dence, the complainants' damages can be computed. It is enough for us to saythat the losses claimed for the entire decline in the com- plainants' sales, and on looms, are too remotely connected with the defendants' acts as their supposed cause, and hence are too specula- tive in their character to entitle them to allowance. �It sufficiently appears that the respondents made and sold 20 pieces of 55 yards each, 1,100 yards in all, of carpets containing the design described in No. 30 of April tei-m, 1879, and that the complainants' profit upon carpets of that design was 67 cents per yard. They lost, therefore,, this sum upon 1,100 yards, and their damages amount to $737, for which a final decree must be rendered in their favor. �In No. 34, April term, 1879, which is founded upon the patent for what is popularly called the " Pagoda Pattern," the respondents made 20 pieces of 50 yards each, in all 1,000 yards, the profit of complain- ants for like carpet being 75 cents per yard. The respondents have not disclosed what became of the carpets thus made by them, and ��� �