WEST END WATCH CO Vs. BERNA WATCH CO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiffs sue to restrain the defendants from using and imitating various trade symbols alleged to belong to the plaintiffs and from representing that the defendants business is the business carried on by the plaintiffs.

(2.) At the commencement of the hearing eighteen issues were proposed, very few of which touched the real questions in the suit. The first ten of those issues were founded on various state ments in the narrative of facts contained in the plaint. This is in accordance with a practice which has. grown up at the Original Side of raising a number of issues which do not state the main questions in the suit but only various subsidiary matters of fact upon which there is not agreement between the parties. The effect is very embarrassing and the practice has often been condemned by trying judges. In my opinion issues should be confined to questions of law arising on the pleadings and such questions of fact as it would be necessary for the judge to frame for decision by the jury in a jury trial at nisi prius in England.

(3.) Having eliminated ten issues the Court recorded eight, but they do not specifically cover the questions chiefly in issue in the suit, which are, in my opinion, as will appear from this judgment, whether the plaintiffs have abandoned their most popular trade symbol and whether the defendants have improperly represented that their business is the business carried on by the plaintiffs.