Burton v. Taxicab Co.

Bond, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Burton, the owner of a private taxicab in Baltimore City, appeals from an order in equity holding him in contempt, and fining him a nominal amount, for violation of an injunction against using and operating in the city a taxicab not so marked as to be easily distinguishable from the yellow taxicabs operated by the Taxicab Company. Burton’s cab had been painted in the same shade of yellow, combined in the same design with masses and lines of black as the cabs long maintained by the Taxicab Company, except for a difference in the painting of the wheels; and the company applied for an injunction to restrain the unfair competition which it considered had resulted. The facts presented to the court were exactly similar to those presented in the case of Mundon v. Taxicab Company, 151 Md. 449 , and the trial court held the appellant guilty of wrongful imitation and competition, and by its decree enjoined the use of any cab by him similarly painted “until the same has been so changed in appearance as to make it distinguishable by the ordinary and casual user from the yellow taxicabs of the plaintiff.” This was substantially the requirement upheld to prevent unfair competition in the Mundon case, upon reasons and authorities which need not be repeated.

Besides, there has been no appeal from the decree in this case and it is final and beyond objection. The question now is only one of compliance or failure to comply. Howat v. Kansas, 258 U. S. 181, 189 . After the passage of the decree, the appellant left the colors and their arrangement on the cab unchanged, but placed on the doors and in the rear, in black letters four and a half inches high, the words “City Cab Company.” And this was the only step taken to comply with the decree.

The plaintiff in the suit applied for an attachment of the defendant for contempt to try the sufficiency of this step, and, ¹⁸⁵ after hearing, the trial court concluded that it was