Page:Howell v. Miller.pdf/13

Rh the exact language of the court itself, frequently making such slight changes as were necessary to preserve grammatical consistency. He made no use whatever of the annotations and digests of Howell. The correspondence between his work and Howell’s he accounted for by the fact that Howell adopted a similar method in the preparation of his work, and used the original headnotes, syllabi, and the original language of the supreme court decisions in the same manner as he did. In preparing copy for the constitution of the United States he used the pamphlet edition of that constitution published by the authority of the general government in 1891 and certified as having been compared with the original in the department of state, April 13, 1891, and found to be correct. The subdivisions of the sections of the articles of the constitution as published in such pamphlet edition did not correspond with the subdivisions of the constitution as published in Howell’s Annotated Statutes. The index as published in Howell’s Statutes could not be, and was not, used by him. It became necessary to number the paragraphs as contained in the pamphlet edition of that constitution in consecutive order, and then he prepared copy for the index that would correspond. In preparing copy for the constitution of the state he adopted the pamphlet edition thereof, compiled and published under the supervision of the secretary of state in April, 1895, because that copy was certified by the secretary of state to have been carefully compared with the engrossed copy of the constitution on file in his office, and was, therefore, officially certified to be correct. He included as an index to the constitution of the state the same index that was published in connection with the pamphlet compiled and published by the secretary of state. The index so used is the same one that was published by the state department in the Michigan manual continuously, beginning with the session of 1885.

This is a fair summary of the many facts stated by Miller in the affidavit referred to. After carefully comparing the printed part of Miller’s compilation with Howell’s Annotated Statutes, we do not find that the statements of Miller, in respect of the material issues of fact, are overthrown. At any rate, the evidence tending to show that Miller appropriated the labors of Howell is not of such character as to justify a court of equity in interfering to prevent the printing, publication, distribution, and sale of the compilation recognized by the state legislature. In the brief of the learned counsel for the appellant are given instances in which, it is contended, the notes of Howell have been so copied as to show that Miller did not resort to the original sources of information, but, under the disguise of slight alterations of words and forms of expression, really appropriated the work of Howell. But it is to be observed that those notes relate principally or often to previous statutes and judicial decisions which would be referred to by annotators in substantially the same way, even if they resorted exclusively to the original common sources of information, and did not have before them at the time the books of others who had been engaged in the same kind of work. There are some instances specified in the original brief for the appellant which seem to justify the charge that Miller did appropriate the labors of Howell. In respect of some of those instances, it may be said that the plaintiff claims as his work