MacGruer

This is an appeal by plaintiffs from a judgment in favor of defendant in an action for maliciously obtaining an injunction. The respondent Denivelle had been in the imitation travertine business in eastern states; about 1912 he became the supervisor of all artificial travertine work for the Panama Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco. At such time the appellants MacGruer and Simpson (co-partners) had a contract for plain and ornamental plastering on Machinery Hall, one of the Panama Pacific International Exposition buildings. During this period appellants informed respondent that they had a contract to do a large artificial travertine job in Los Angeles, whereupon respondent threatened to prevent the appellants from further manufacturing artificial travertine, claiming such manufacture to be an infringement of a patent then held by respondent. Subsequently, appellants started the work in Los Angeles and respondent secured a preliminary injunction from the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of California, Southern Division, upon the grounds that Denivelle was the sole and exclusive owner of United States-letters patent (No. 1,212,-331); that…