Task: songer_direct1

What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Your task is to determine the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision, coded as "liberal" or "conservative". Consider liberal to be for government tax claim; for person claiming patent or copyright infringement; for the plaintiff alleging the injury; for economic underdog if one party is clearly an underdog in comparison to the other, neither party is clearly an economic underdog; in cases pitting an individual against a business, the individual is presumed to be the economic underdog unless there is a clear indication in the opinion to the contrary; for debtor or bankrupt; for government or private party raising claim of violation of antitrust laws, or party opposing merger; for the economic underdog in private conflict over securities; for individual claiming a benefit from government; for government in disputes over government contracts and government seizure of property; for government regulation in government regulation of business; for greater protection of the environment or greater consumer protection (even if anti-government); for the injured party in admiralty - personal injury; for economic underdog in admiralty and miscellaneous economic cases. Consider the directionality to be "mixed" if the directionality of the decision was intermediate to the extremes defined above or if the decision was mixed (e.g., the conviction of defendant in a criminal trial was affirmed on one count but reversed on a second count or if the conviction was afirmed but the sentence was reduced). Consider "not ascertained" if the directionality could not be determined or if the outcome could not be classified according to any conventional outcome standards.

PER CURIAM.
In this suit brought under Section 4 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 15, for alleged injury resulting from claimed violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 2, by defendant there was before the district court for trial as a separate issue the question of “Whether the excessive shoe machinery costs alleged by the plaintiff and denied by the defendant constituted an injury to plaintiff’s business or property.” The quoted from consented to order further provided that the determination of the separate issue would proceed on the assumption “that the violation of the law as alleged existed, and (2) that the excessive cost of machinery as alleged existed.” The sole defense to that assumed state of facts was that plaintiff passed along defendant’s excessive charges to its customers and therefore was not injured.
The district court in a thoroughly convincing opinion rejected the proposition advanced by defendant as contrary to the language and purpose of the governing law. Appellant also asserts that the trebled damages called for by Section 4 would result in a windfall to plaintiff. Congress, in line with its effort to eliminate the sort of monopolistic practice here revealed imposed this rigorous penalty. The assumed situation before the district court is scarcely to be called sui generis but if by any chance it should be so categoried "then any modification of Section 4 to fit the particular circumstances would be for the Congress.
■The order of the district court will be affirmed on the opinion of that court, D.C. M.D.Pa.1960, 185 F.Supp. 826.

Question: What is the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision?
A. conservative
B. liberal
C. mixed
D. not ascertained
Answer:

Answer: B