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Supreme Court· 3/27/1893

Johnston v. Standard Mining Co.

Citations

  • 148 U.S. 360
  • 13 S. Ct. 585
  • 37 L. Ed. 480
  • 1893 U.S. LEXIS 2236

Syllabus

<p>The mere institution of a suit does not of itself relieve a person from the 'charge of laches; and if he fail in its diligent prosecution, the consequences are the same as though no action had been begun.</p> <p>Where a question of laches is in issue the plaintiff is chargeable with such knowledge as he might have obtained upon inquiry, provided the facts already known to him were such as. to put the duty of inquiry upon a man of ordinary intelligence.</p> <p>The duty of inquiry is all the mc>re peremptory when the thing in dispute is mining property, which is of an uncertain character, and is liable to suddenly develop an enormous increase in value.</p> <p>In this case it is clear that the plaintiff did not make use of that 'diligence which the circumstances of the case called for.</p>

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

  • placing the duty of inquiry “upon a man of ordinary intelligence”
  • “[P]laintiff is chargeable with such knowledge as he might have obtained upon inquiry provided the facts already known by him were such as to put upon a man of ordinary intelligence the duty of inquiry.”
  • “[T]he plaintiff is chargeable with such knowledge as he might have obtained upon inquiry, provided the facts already known by him were such as to put upon a man of ordinary intelligence the duty of inquiry.”
  • applying Johnston standard to trademark cases
  • “[T]he law is well settled that where the question of laches is in issue the plaintiff is chargeable with such knowledge as he might have obtained upon inquiry, provided the facts already known by him were such as to put upon a man of ordinary intelligence the duty of inquiry.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Brown

Read full opinion on CourtListener

Cited by

136 cases in this archive cite this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

Cites

2 cases in this archive are cited by this case.

Sourced from CourtListener / Free Law Project (CC0).

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