CANCER RESEARCH INSTITUTE, INC. V. CANCER RESEARCH SOCIETY, INC. 744 F.Supp. 526 (S.D. NY 1990) CASE BRIEF

CANCER RESEARCH INSTITUTE, INC. V. CANCER RESEARCH SOCIETY, INC.

744 F.Supp. 526 (S.D. NY 1990)

NATURE OF THE CASE: Institute (P) brought this action against Society (D) seeking to have D held in contempt for a violation of the court's prior injunction preventing it from using a name confusingly similar to P. P also sought attorney fees and costs.

FACTS: The Judgment and Permanent Injunction entered by this Court on April 29, 1988 permanently enjoined D 'from listing or advertising itself in any telephone directory in the United States under the name Cancer Research Society . . . .' The Court instructed D to notify before June 1, 1988 the publishers of all directories in which the offending listing had already appeared, or in which it was about to appear and could not be halted, that the listing must be deleted from all future directories. D was ordered to 'take immediate steps to attempt to secure the withdrawal of any such listings which were placed prior to April 19, 1988,' and were slated to appear in directories which had 'not yet reached their closing dates.' P claims that D failed to secure the timely deletion of prohibited listings from numerous directories published between late 1988 and late 1989 and that failure warrants a finding of contempt. P surveyed 15 directory companies, responsible for the publication of 39 directories containing the prohibited listing, to determine whether they received cancellation orders from D and, if so, whether the cancellation orders were received in time to delete D's listings from directories that were still open when the Court issued its injunction. Cancellation orders were found for five directories but they were received anywhere from 18 days after the effective closing date to approximately four months after the publication date.' The survey 'could not verify a single instance where D secured the cancellation of its listing in a book that had not closed as of the date the injunction issued.' D concedes that listings have appeared which violate the terms of the injunction. D seeks to lay the entire blame at the feet of its advertising agency, American Ad Management ('AAM') or the individual directories it maintains published the prohibited listing despite cancellation orders. D claims it was unaware that any of its cancellation orders were ineffectual until it received P's contempt motion papers. D claimed that its employee immediately cancelled through its advertising agency which in turn issued 150 cancellations. D also contends that its phones were disconnected between May 1988 and January 1989, and that D placed no new telephone listings or advertisements soliciting funds after mid-June 1988. D also submitted three large binders containing 196 so-called 'tear sheets' from current (1989-1990) directories around the nation, which demonstrate that the D name had been excised from the current edition of these directories. P contends that the latter evidence is irrelevant in that had D removed the prohibited listing from the directories published in late 1988 and early 1989, it would have produced evidence of those deletions in opposition to P's motion.

ISSUE:

RULE OF LAW:

HOLDING AND DECISION:

LEGAL ANALYSIS:

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