Ryan v. Superior Court

NOURSE, J. pro tem.

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Petitioners seek a writ of mandate commanding the respondent court to vacate its order sustaining the objections of the plaintiff, the real party in interest herein, to certain written interrogatories propounded to the plaintiff pursuant to the provisions of section 2030, Code of Civil Procedure, and to order the plaintiff to answer said interrogatories.

The action, pending in the respondent court and filed on February 17, 1960, seeks damages and injunctive relief for alleged unfair competition.

The first cause of action alleges in substance that, continuously from 1949 through 1958, plaintiff has published a series of biographical reference books under the names respectively of “Who’s Who in Los Angeles County” and “Who’s Who In California”; that she owns the trademarks and copyrights on said books; that said books are of interest to varied organizations and persons; that the style and design, and particularly the cover of white with a gold leaf-grained fabric embossed with gold lettering, were plaintiff’s original creations and are unique.

Plaintiff then further alleges that, prior to 1959, defendants published biographical books in the county of Los Angeles which were identified by their blue covers and were sold under the trade name of “Blue Books”; that, in 1959, defendants for the first time published books using the same type of cover as the cover on plaintiff’s publications; that the said books

[816]

published in 1959 by defendants are an imitation and simulation of plaintiff’s books which are calculated and likely to mislead and deceive purchasers into believing that defendants’ books are the books of plaintiff; that said imitation and simulation has actually deceived and misled many persons and caused them to buy defendants’ books; that, by reason thereof, plaintiff seeks damages in the sum of $25,000; that she also seeks an injunction, and an accounting of defendants’ profits during the last two prior years, 1958 and 1959.

In the second cause of action, plaintiff, after incorporating most of the allegations of her first cause of action, alleges that she has obtained and assembled the biographical data published in her books by devoting great labor, intensive research and untiring efforts to the obtaining thereof continuously ever since the year 1949; that within four years last past (i.e. during the years 1956-1959), defendants have published a book entitled “California Register” under the trade name “Blue Books”; that defendants in their said books wrongfully copied 1,800 names belonging to plaintiff from plaintiff’s books; that defendants represented to the public that the names included in defendants’ books were the property of the defendants and had been obtained by them from original sources; and that such conduct has misled many purchasers to buy defendants’ books rather than plaintiff’s books.