Opinion of the Court.

jury were authorized to allow to the plaintiff, in addition to the value of the property destroyed, damages by way of interest on its value, not exceeding 6 per cent. The court said that it was not apprised of any statutory provision which allowed a jury to give interest for such damages; that there was no such provision in the statute concerning interest; and that 87 of the act concerning damages, which allowed interest in cases of the unlawful conversion of property by the party sued would not, in terms or by analogous reasoning, embrace a case where no benefit could possibly have accrued to the defendant by the negligence which occasioned the destruction of the property. The judgment was reversed because of the allowance of interest.

In Marshall v. Schricker, 63 Missouri, 308, in 1876, it was held that, in actions ex delicto, based upon the simple negligence of a party to whom no pecuniary benefit could accrue by reason of the injury thereby inflicted, interest was not allowable.

The same ruling was made in Atkinson v. A. & P. Rail road, 63 Missouri, 367, in 1876.

In Meyer v. A. & P. Railroad, 64 Missouri, 542, in 1877, which was an action for damages for the killing of a heifer through the negligence of a railroad company, the court held, citing two of the cases in 63 Missouri, and Judge Norton delivering its opinion, that the jury could not allow interest on the damages from the time they accrued.

But, in 1878, in Dunn v. Hannibal & St. Jo. Railroad, 68 Missouri, 268, in an action to recover damages against a carrier, for negligence in transporting live stock, the court below having instructed the jury to allow interest on the damages at the rate of 6 per cent. from the institution of the suit until the verdict, the Supreme Court, Judge Norton delivering the opinion, held that the instruction was proper, citing the case of Gray v. Missouri River Packet Co., 64 Missouri, 47, 50, in which, in a case to recover damages for negligence by a common carrier in transporting an animal, the court below had directed the jury to add 6 per cent interest from the time the animal was shipped to the damages found, and the judgment

Opinion of the Court.

was affirmed, he himself delivering the opinion, and saying that it was a general rule, that, when goods were not delivered by a common carrier according to contract, the measure of damages was the value of the goods with interest from the day when they should have been delivered, less the freight, if unpaid. No allusion was made in either case to the cases in 63 Missouri, or to § 2126.

In De Steiger v. Hannibal & St. Jo. Railroad, 73 Missouri, 33, in 1880, while Judge Norton was still a member of the court, it was held, in a suit for the destruction of hay by fire escaping from the defendant's locomotive through its negligence, that interest was not allowable in cases of that character, citing the three cases in 63 Missouri, and the case in 64 Missouri, above referred to.

In Wade v. Missouri Pacific Railway, 78 Missouri, 362, in 1883, reference was made to the two cases to that effect in 64 Missouri, and 73 Missouri, and it was said that interest was not allowable in actions for negligence.

In Kimes v. St. Louis &c. Railway, 85 Missouri, 611, in 1885, which was an action against a railroad company for damages for negligence in killing a horse and breaking a wagon by a train of cars at a public road crossing, the court below had instructed the jury to allow six per cent interest on the damages. The Supreme Court of Missouri, delivering its opinion by Judge Norton, held that the interest was not allowable, referring to the case in 73 Missouri; but, as the plaintiff remitted the amount of the interest, the judgment was affirmed, except as to the amount remitted.

In The State v. Harrington, 44 Mo. App. 297, it was held, referring to the cases above cited from 63, 64, and 73 Missouri, that where an action ex delicto is based upon the simple negligence of the defendant, to whom no benefit had accrued or could accrue by reason of the injury or wrong, interest was not allowable.

It may not, perhaps, be possible to reconcile with one another all of the foregoing cases; but, on the whole, we regard it as an established rule of the Supreme Court of Missouri, in the construction of the state statutes, that the jury is

Opinion of the Court.

not warranted in allowing interest in a case like the present, from the time suit was brought. When property is wrongfully injured or destroyed, it is supposed that the wrongdoer derives no benefit.

The defendant cites the case of Shockley v. Fischer, 21 Mo. App. 551, as holding that interest is not allowable when it is not claimed in the petition.

It is well settled as a general rule that the measure of damages in the case of a common carrier is the value of the goods entrusted to it for transportation, with interest from the time when they ought to have been delivered. Mobile & Montgomery Railway v. Jurey, 111 U. S. 584; Gray v. Missouri River Packet Co., 64 Missouri, 47; Dunn v. Hannibal & St. Jo. Railroad, 68 Missouri, 268; Hutchinson on Carriers, 2d ed. § 771; 1 Sutherland on Damages, 629. But when the matter appears to have been regulated by statute in the State, and the statute has been interpreted by its highest court, the regulation of the statute will be followed in the courts of the United States.

We have considered all the questions raised by the defendant, and do not think it necessary to discuss them further. The judgment in the Estill case is affirmed as to the $8750 damages; but it is not affirmed as to the amount of interest, or any part thereof, awarded by the verdict or judg ment. That judgment is modified as to such interest, and the case is remanded to the court below, with a direction to enter a judgment for the plaintiffs for $8750, being the damages assessed by the jury, with interest on such judg ment from the time it shall be entered until it shall be paid, and for the costs and charges of the plaintiffs in the Circuit Court.

The judgment in the Leonard case is affirmed as to the $44,000 damages; but it is not affirmed as to the amount of interest, or any part thereof, awarded by the verdict or judgment. The judgment is modified as to such interest, and the case is remanded to the court below, with a direction to enter a judgment for the plaintiffs for $44,000, being the damages assessed by the jury, with interest on such judg

Syllabus.

ment from the time it shall be entered until it shall be paid, and for the costs and charges of the plaintiffs in the Circuit Court.

The costs of this court, of the plaintiffs in error and the defendant in error shall be paid, one-half of them by the plaintiffs in error and the other half by the defendant in

error.

LOVELL MANUFACTURING COMPANY v. CARY.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA.

No. 110. Argued January 17, 18, 1893. - Decided March 6, 1893.

Letters patent No. 116,266, granted to Alanson Cary, as inventor, June 27, 1871, for an improvement in modes of tempering springs, are invalid, in view of the state of the art, for want of patentable invention. The invention appears, from the specification, to be a method of restoring steel wire which has been mechanically strained, by subjecting it to a temperature of 600°, more or less, and the claim limits the method to its application to "furniture or other coiled springs;" but the process, as applied to those springs, was not different, in method or effect, from the same process when applied to any mechanically strained wire, or to steel made in straight pieces or strips, or otherwise.

The invention was anticipated by the prior use of New England wire clockbells and of blued hair springs, used in marine clocks. The treatment to which those articles were subjected was in all respects the same in the prior use, as in the patented process.

It does not amount to invention to discover that an old process is better in its results, when applied to a new working, than would have been expected, the difference between its prior working and the new working being only one of degree and not one of kind.

There was nothing more than mechanical skill in arriving at the alleged invention, in view of the state of the art.

The point considered that no one had used the former processes for the manufacture of furniture springs, and that as soon as Cary's process was made known, the art of making furniture springs was revolutionized.

The cases in this court on the subject of double use, considered as to whether it is a patentable invention to apply old and well-known devices and processes to new uses, in other and analogous arts.

Opinion of the Court.

THE case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. W. Bakewell and Mr. Thomas W. Bakewell for appellant. Mr. James K. Bakewell and Mr. J. K. Hallock were also on the brief.

Mr. William H. Kenyon for appellees. Mr. W. C. Witter was with him on the brief.

MR. JUSTICE BLATCHFORD delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a suit in equity, brought March, 14, 1885, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western District of Pennsylvania, by Alanson Cary and Edward A. Moen against the Lovell Manufacturing Company, Limited, an association under the laws of the State of Pennsylvania, to recover for the alleged infringement of letters patent No. 116,266, granted to Alanson Cary, June 27, 1871, for an improvement in modes · of tempering springs.

The specification of the patent is as follows: "Be it known that I, Alanson Cary, of city, county, and State of New York, have invented a new and useful improvement in furniture springs; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, which will enable others skilled in the art to make and use the same. This invention relates to spiral springs, usually made in a conical form, of steel wire, and extensively used in upholstering sofas and chairs and for bed bottoms, etc., and consists in subjecting the spring to a tempering process after it has been completed in the usual manner, whereby its strength, elasticity, and durability are greatly increased. The ordinary furniture spring is made of hard-drawn wire, coiled and forced to the proper shape, and when this is done the spring is considered finished, without having been subjected to any tempering process other than what is incidental to the drawing of the wire. To give them a finished appearance, however, copper or other material is frequently applied by suitable means. The metal being greatly condensed and hardened in the process of drawing the wire, a good degree of elasticity is given the wire thereby;