Source: http://il.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19600616_0000014.NIL.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2018-02-22 21:19:53
Document Index: 98119650

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1', '§ 13', '§ 13', '§ 1985', '§ 1753', '§ 13']

Plaintiff, Central Ice Cream Company, an Illinois corporation, brought this action for injunctive relief and damages against Golden Rod Ice Cream Company, an Illinois corporation, alleging conduct by defendant in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, Title 15 U.S.C.A. § 1, the Clayton Act, Title 15 U.S.C.A. § 13, the Robinson-Patman Act, Title 15 U.S.C.A. §§ 13a and 13b, the Civil Rights Act, Title 42 U.S.C.A. § 1985(3) and the National School Lunch Act, Title 42 U.S.C.A. § 1753. Plaintiff has since expressly disclaimed any reliance upon all except one of the above statutes and the case now comes on for disposition upon a Stipulation of Facts and the exhibits and briefs of the parties, plaintiff resting its claim for relief exclusively upon Section 2 of the Clayton Act as amended by Section 1 of the Robinson-Patman Act, Title 15 U.S.C.A. § 13(a-f).
Defendant maintains an ice cream manufacturing plant in Chicago, Illinois, and sells and delivers ice cream, sherberts and other frozen desserts solely within the State of Illinois. In 1955, defendant used 0.452% of the butterfat reaching the Chicago milk marketing area from Illinois and Wisconsin and 7.468% of the total butterfat used in the production of ice cream by all ice cream handlers in the Chicago marketing area.
"Tom, who was leaving his car there was — after
some fifteen minutes of conversation, Tom just about
as he was to take leave of me said, `Phil, how long
have you served the schools?'
"I said, `Some twenty odd years, Tom. Why, are you
thinking about bidding?'
"I said, `Well, Tom, you know if we lose that
business we are certainly going to have to make an
effort to fill the gap.'
"And with that, Tom took leave and I drove on back
to the plant."
Subsequently, plaintiff did submit its bid to the Chicago Board of Education and the bid was accepted. In the six or seven weeks following November 4, 1955, the defendant's salesmen called on plaintiff's customers in the Chicago area within the State of Illinois, and not elsewhere, soliciting their ice cream business, and in many instances made loans of money to said customers by way of advanced discounts in order to procure their business. Such loans were represented by customers' notes payable to defendant, and in most instances were to be amortized or repaid out of a special discount, usually at the rate of ten cents per gallon, to be allowed such customers upon their purchases of ice cream from the defendant. Such loans were not uniform in amount, but were based upon the defendant company's estimate of the potential volume of business to be procured from each of said customers. Defendant did not at that time make or offer to make similar advances of money to all of its then customers in the Chicago area, but "such advances or loans were made to meet competition from the plaintiff and other purveyors of ice cream in the Chicago area".
During 1955 plaintiff's sales manager had authority to quote any price on bulk ice cream — as distinguished from packaged ice cream — necessary to procure the business. Plaintiff sold bulk ice cream in the summer season of 1955 to Riverview Park at a price of $1.00 per gallon. It sold Northwestern University for a few weeks in 1955 at $1.20 per gallon.
On July 22, 1957, D.C., 153 F. Supp. 684, 686, I dismissed this complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted under any of the several statutes set forth in the complaint as originally relied upon. As I then pointed out:
"The complaint alleges that plaintiff is an ice
cream manufacturer in Illinois; that it `imports a
very substantial part of its milk, cream and other
ingredients from Wisconsin and other states in
interstate commerce, transforms them into ice cream
in Illinois and sells this ice cream very extensively
both in Illinois and in other states'; that defendant
is engaged in manufacture of ice cream also and
obtains the raw materials from other states but that
`so far as the plaintiff is informed the defendant
makes no sales or deliveries of its ice cream outside
Illinois'. The gravamen of the complaint is that
sometime in November, 1955, plaintiff and defendant
submitted rival bids to the Board of Education of the
City of Chicago, for the supply of ice cream for use
in the Board's school lunch program, which is
subsidized by the Federal Government under the
National School Lunch Act; that defendant warned
plaintiff that if it should persist in its bid to
secure a contract with the Board, defendant would
make a concentrated effort to deprive plaintiff of
its customers. The complaint further alleges that the
contract was awarded to plaintiff and ...