CORPORATIONS - PROTECTION OF CORPORATE NAME - INJUNCTIVE RELIEF

Plaintiff sought an injunction restraining defendant from using its corporate name in insuring real estate titles in the District of Columbia. The corporate names of plaintiff and defendant are identical except for the difference between the words "company" and "corporation." Plaintiff is a District of Columbia corporation organized in I 896 under the name "Lawyers Title Insurance Company." Defendant was incorporated in Virginia in 1925 under the name "Lawyers Title Insurance Corporation." From 1896 to 1922 plaintiff conducted its business entirely independently. In later years it made a "working agreement" with two other District title companies. A majority of the stock of these three corporations is now held by a fourth, the Consolidated Title Company.

All these corporations under the "working agreement" have identical employees. Only the profits are kept in separate bank accounts from which each pays it own dividends, taxes and license fees. The findings of fact state that plaintiff and its associates are called generally by the public, "the District Title Company," and that plaintiff is not referred to in business circles as "the Lawyers Title Insurance Company," and that there is no evidence that plaintiff ever acquired a reputation under that name alone. Held, plaintiff abandoned the right of exclusive use of its name by associating with other corporations under a holding company and engaging in the same business under a conglomerate name.

Lawyers Title Insurance Company v. Lawyers Title Insurance Corporation, (App. D. C. 1939) 109 F. (2d) 35, cert. denied (U.S. 1940) 60 S. Ct. 806.