NOTES OF RECENT CASES He was warned to discontinue the use of them, and having failed to do so, the defendant shut off the current from his wires. The court, in discussing the liability of the defendant company for dam ages in refusing to furnish plaintiff electricity as ■agreed, stated that the company was clearly within its rights when it refused to allow its elec tricity to run through such defective wires to avoid any possible liability of fire or danger to any person on its part, and that whatever damages the plaintiff suffered by being deprived of his light was due to his own fault and not to the fault of the company. PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANIES. (Unfair Competition.) Utah. — A novel and original cause of action arises in Rocky Mountain Bell Telephone Company v. Utah Independent Telephone Com pany, 88 Pac. Rep. 26. The parties are rival telephone companies, and the action is a suit for injunction to restrain the defendant company from adopting and using the number 888 for its telephone call for its trouble department. The gravamen of the complaint was founded on the fact that defendant company adopted such num erals for its trouble call after the plaintiff had adopted and used such number for many years for the same purpose, alleging that the adoption of such number was fraudulent and done for the purpose of obtaining knowledge and information and then using it to induce the patrons of plaintiff to subscribe for and use the telephones of defen dant, to plaintiff's injury and damage. It was not directly alleged that the defendant made the numbers in imitation of those used by the plaintiff, or that there was any deceit or misrepresentation practiced in their use, except as stated. The court lays down the proposition that if defendant had a legal right to adopt and use such number in connection with its trouble department, then the motive it had in view in so doing was wholly immaterial from a legal standpoint, and that any incidental injury or annoyance from that source would not be of any legal significance, if they were the result of a legal right. In this connec tion, the court cites as presenting analogous cases, Phelps v. Nowlen, 72 N. Y. 39, 28 Amer. Reps. 93; Clinton v. Myers, 46 N. Y. 511, 520, 7, Amer. Reps. 373; Hague v. Wheeler, Pa., 27 Atl. 714, 32 L. R. A. 141, 37 Amer. St. Reps. 736. It was pointed out that all that defendant could learn was whose telephone was defective, and that could only be so when a patron of the plaintiff company made a mistake by carelessly using the telephone of defendant instead of that of plaintiff. The court propounds the question, can the defendant be enjoined from conducting its business in its own way simply because it has so organized it
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that careless people may use its telephone for a certain purpose not for pay, instead of that of plaintiff, who is a competitor of the defendant in the same business? It continues " surely, it cannot seriously be contended that defendant organized its system and is conducting it in that way for the sole purpose of benefitting itself from chance occurrences such as those above mentioned. But suppose it is true that defen dant does learn of trouble in respect to plaintiff's telephone by the means alleged, it could not profit from this, unless it can convince the sub scriber using the plaintiff's telephone that defen dant's system is the better one, and is better calculated to serve his purpose in that it is less liable to cause trouble. This, if competition is permissible in the telephone business, would seem to be legitimate competition," and concludes that it did not appear that defendant had prac ticed any deceit or fraud, but had simply and openly announced to all that its trouble depart ment was connected with telephones which were the same number used by plaintiff for the same purpose. It was pointed out that no claim was made that the number 888 either alone or as used in connection with the telephones connected with plaintiff's trouble department was, or con stituted a trade-mark. RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES. (Selection of Trus tee.) U. S. Cir. Ct. N. D. Ill. — One of the most interesting recent decisions on questions of both law and fact is that of Holmes v. Dowie, 148 Fed. Rep. 634, involving the affairs of the religious organization founded by Dowie at Zion City, Illi nois. A vast amount of property had been accu mulated by Dowie from sales of land and volun tary contributions of his followers all over the world. The property all stood in his name, although he had at various times stated that it was held in trust for the " Christian Catholic Apostolic Church to go down in generations to do good in that line." He had acted as sole head of the church and business interests connected therewith; but, his health having failed, he had gone to Mexico, leaving the affairs of Zion City in charge of one Voliva, to whom he had executed a power of attorney giving full control over the property. While Dowie was thus away, Voliva and others proceeded to suspend him from the position of general overseer and Voliva assumed authority himself. Dowie hastened back to re gain his leadership, and brought an action against Voliva and those who had helped place him in authority, alleging that the property covered by the power of attorney belonged to himself per sonally; that the conveyances made by Voliva to one of his associates were a fraud on Dowie's
