Task: sc_respondent

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the respondent of the case. The respondent is the party being sued or tried and is also known as the appellee. Characterize the respondent as the Court's opinion identifies them.

Identify the respondent by the label given to the party in the opinion or judgment of the Court except where the Reports title a party as the "United States" or as a named state. Textual identification of parties is typically provided prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. The official syllabus, the summary that appears on the title page of the case, may be consulted as well. In describing the parties, the Court employs terminology that places them in the context of the specific lawsuit in which they are involved. For example, "employer" rather than "business" in a suit by an employee; as a "minority," "female," or "minority female" employee rather than "employee" in a suit alleging discrimination by an employer.

Also note that the Court's characterization of the parties applies whether the respondent is actually single entitiy or whether many other persons or legal entities have associated themselves with the lawsuit. That is, the presence of the phrase, et al., following the name of a party does not preclude the Court from characterizing that party as though it were a single entity. Thus, identify a single respondent, regardless of how many legal entities were actually involved. If a state (or one of its subdivisions) is a party, note only that a state is a party, not the state's name.

Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a civil antitrust action charging a price-fixing agreement in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act. 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1. The District Court dismissed the complaint. 273 F. Supp. 18. The case is here on appeal, 15 U. S. C. § 29; and we noted probable jurisdiction. 390 U. S. 1022.
The case as proved is unlike any other price decisions we have rendered. There was here an exchange of price information but no agreement to adhere to a price schedule as in Sugar Institute v. United States, 297 U. S. 553, or United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150. There was here an exchange of information concerning specific sales to identified customers, not a statistical report on the average cost to all members, without identifying the parties to specific transactions, as in Maple Flooring Mfrs. Assn. v. United States, 268 U. S. 563. While there was present here, as in Cement Mfrs. Protective Assn. v. United States, 268 U. S. 588, an exchange of prices to specific customers, there was absent the controlling circumstance, viz., that cement manufacturers, to protect themselves from delivering to contractors more cement than was needed for a specific job and thus receiving a lower price, exchanged price information as a means of protecting their legal rights from fraudulent inducements to deliver more cement than needed for a specific job.
Here all that was present was a request by each defendant of its competitor for information as to the most recent price charged or quoted, whenever it needed such information and whenever it was not available from another source. Each defendant on receiving that request usually furnished the data with the expectation that it would be furnished reciprocal information when it wanted it. That concerted action is of course sufficient to establish the combination or conspiracy, the initial ingredient of a violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act.
There was of course freedom to withdraw from the agreement. But the fact remains that when a defendant requested and received price information, it was affirming its willingness to furnish such information in return.
There was to be sure an infrequency and irregularity of price exchanges between the defendants; and often the data were available from the records of the defendants or from the customers themselves. Yet the essence of the agreement was to furnish price information whenever requested.
Moreover, although the most recent price charged or quoted was sometimes fragmentary, each defendant had the manuals with which it could compute the price charged by a competitor on a specific order to a specific customer.
Further, the price quoted was the current price which a customer would need to pay in order to obtain products from the defendant furnishing the data.
The defendants account for about 90% of the shipment of corrugated containers from plants in the Southeastern United States. While containers vary as to dimensions, weight, color, and so on, they are substantially identical, no matter who produces them, when made to particular specifications. The prices paid depend on price alternatives. Suppliers when seeking new or additional business or keeping old customers, do not exceed a competitor’s price. It is common for purchasers to buy from two or more suppliers concurrently. A defendant supplying a customer with containers would usually quote the same price on additional orders, unless costs had changed. Yet where a competitor was charging a particular price, a defendant would normally quote the same price or even a lower price.
The exchange of price information seemed to have the effect of keeping prices within a fairly narrow ambit. Capacity has exceeded the demand from 1955 to 1963, the period covered by the complaint, and the trend of corrugated container prices has been downward. Yet despite this excess capacity and the downward trend of prices, the industry has expanded in the Southeast from 30 manufacturers with 49 plants to 51 manufacturers with 98 plants. An abundance of raw materials and machinery makes entry into the industry easy with an investment of $50,000 to $75,000.
The result of this reciprocal exchange of prices was to stabilize prices though at a downward level. Knowledge of a competitor’s price usually meant matching that price. The continuation of some price competition is not fatal to the Government’s case. The limitation or reduction of price competition brings the case within the ban, for as we held in United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., supra, at 224, n. 59, interference with the setting of price by free market forces is unlawful per se. Price information exchanged in some markets may have no effect on a truly competitive price. But the corrugated container industry is dominated by relatively few sellers. The product is fungible and the competition for sales is price. The demand is inelastic, as buyers place orders only for immediate, short-run needs. The exchange of price data tends toward price uniformity. For a lower price does not mean a larger share of the available business but a sharing of the existing business at a lower return. Stabilizing prices as well as raising them is within the ban of § 1 of the Sherman Act. As we said in United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., supra, at 223, “in terms of market operations stabilization is but one form of manipulation.” The inferences are irresistible that the exchange of price information has had an anticompetitive effect in the industry, chilling the vigor of price competition. The agreement in the present case, though somewhat casual, is analogous to those in American Column & Lumber Co. v. United States, 257 U. S. 377, and United States v. American Linseed Oil Co., 262 U. S. 371.
Price is too critical, too sensitive a control to allow it to be used even in an informal manner to restrain competition.
Reversed.
Section 1 provides:
“Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal.”
This is obviously quite different from the parallel business behavior condoned in Theatre Enterprises, Inc. v. Paramount Film Distributing Corp., 346 U. S. 537.
The American Column case was a sophisticated and well-supervised plan for the exchange of price information between competitors with the idea of keeping prices reasonably stable and of putting an end to cutthroat competition. There were no sanctions except financial interest and business honor. But the purpose of the plan being to increase prices, it was held to fall within the ban of the Sherman Act.
Another elaborate plan for the exchange of price data among competitors was involved in American Linseed Oil; and informal sanctions were used to establish "modem co-operative business methods.” The arrangement was declared illegal because its “necessary tendency” was to suppress competition. 262 U. S., at 389.
Thorstein Veblen in The Theory of Business Enterprise (1904) makes clear how the overabundance of a commodity creates a business appetite to regulate or control prices or output or both. Measures short of monopoly may have “a salutary effect,” as for example a degree of control or supervision over prices not obtainable while the parties “stood on their old footing of severalty.” But that relief is apt to be “only transient,” for as the costs of production decline and growth of the industry “catches up with the gain in economy,” the need for further controls or restraints increases. And so the restless, never-ending search for price control and other types of restraint.
We held in United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150, that all forms of price-fixing are per se violations of the Sherman Act.
“The elimination of so-called competitive evils is no legal justification for such buying programs. The elimination of such conditions was sought primarily for its effect on the price structures. Fairer competitive prices, it is claimed, resulted when distress gasoline was removed from the market. But such defense is typical of the protestations usually made in price-fixing cases. Ruinous competition, financial disaster, evils of price cutting and the like appear throughout our history as ostensible justifications for price-fixing. If the so-called competitive abuses were to be appraised here, the reasonableness of prices would necessarily become an issue in every price-fixing case. In that event the Sherman Act would soon be emasculated; its philosophy would be supplanted by one which is wholly alien to a system of free competition; it would not be the charter of freedom which its framers intended.” 310 U. S., at 220-221.

Question: Who is the respondent of the case?
年. attorney general of the United States, or his office
数. specified state board or department of education
日. city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit
的. state commission, board, committee, or authority
月. county government or county governmental unit, except school district
用. court or judicial district
成. state department or agency
名. governmental employee or job applicant
时. female governmental employee or job applicant
件. minority governmental employee or job applicant
一. minority female governmental employee or job applicant
请. not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable
中. retired or former governmental employee
据. U.S. House of Representatives
码. interstate compact
不. judge
新. state legislature, house, or committee
文. local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough
下. governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact
分. state or U.S. supreme court
入. local school district or board of education
人. U.S. Senate
功. U.S. senator
上. foreign nation or instrumentality
户. state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of
为. state college or university
间. United States
号. State
取. person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime
回. advertising business or agency
在. agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor
页. airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes
字. airline
有. distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages
个. alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked
作. American Medical Association
示. National Railroad Passenger Corp.
出. amusement establishment, or recreational facility
是. arrested person, or pretrial detainee
失. attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association
表. author, copyright holder
除. bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company
加. bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization
败. establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store
生. water transportation, stevedore
信. bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines
类. brewery, distillery
置. broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm
理. construction industry
本. bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle
息. business, corporation
行. buyer, purchaser
定. cable TV
改. car dealer
市. person convicted of crime
期. tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband
以. chemical company
修. child, children, including adopted or illegitimate
元. religious organization, institution, or person
方. private club or facility
录. coal company or coal mine operator
区. computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software
单. consumer, consumer organization
位. creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company
型. person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial
法. defendant
县. debtor
存. real estate developer
品. disabled person or disability benefit claimant
前. distributor
称. person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector
注. drug manufacturer
值. druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy
输. employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of
建. employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan
能. electric equipment manufacturer
大. electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company
例. eleemosynary institution or person
度. environmental organization
始. employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer.
到. farmer, farm worker, or farm organization
面. father
载. female employee or job applicant
点. female
密. movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of
动. fisherman or fishing company
果. food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard
图. foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity
提. franchiser
发. franchisee
式. lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization
国. person who guarantees another's obligations
登. handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to
错. health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor
者. heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be
认. hospital, medical center
误. husband, or ex-husband
接. involuntarily committed mental patient
关. Indian, including Indian tribe or nation
重. insurance company, or surety
第. inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder
地. investor
如. injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related
设. juvenile
目. government contractor
开. holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor
事. magazine
可. male
要. medical or Medicaid claimant
代. medical supply or manufacturing co.
小. racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant
选. minority female employee or job applicant
标. manufacturer
明. management, executive officer, or director, of business entity
编. military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist
求. mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company
列. mother
网. auto manufacturer
万. newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service
最. radio and television network, except cable tv
器. nonprofit organization or business
所. nonresident
内. nuclear power plant or facility
体. owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels
通. shareholders to whom a tender offer is made
务. tender offer
此. oil company, or natural gas producer
商. elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly
序. out of state noncriminal defendant
化. political action committee
消. parent or parents
否. parking lot or service
保. patient of a health professional
使. telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company
次. physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society
机. public interest organization
对. physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee
量. pipe line company
查. package, luggage, container
部. political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official
性. indigent, needy, welfare recipient
和. indigent defendant
更. private person
后. prisoner, inmate of penal institution
证. professional organization, business, or person
题. probationer, or parolee
确. protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer
格. public utility
了. publisher, publishing company
于. radio station
金. racial or ethnic minority
公. person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination
午. racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution
円. realtor
片. journalist, columnist, member of the news media
空. resident
态. restaurant, food vendor
管. retarded person, or mental incompetent
主. retired or former employee
天. railroad
自. private school, college, or university
我. seller or vendor
全. shipper, including importer and exporter
今. shopping center, mall
来. spouse, or former spouse
正. stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder
说. retail business or outlet
意. student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution
送. taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only
容. tenant or lessee
已. theater, studio
结. forest products, lumber, or logging company
会. person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent
段. trucking company, or motor carrier
计. television station
源. union member
色. unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant
時. union, labor organization, or official of
交. veteran
系. voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL)
过. wholesale trade
电. wife, or ex-wife
询. witness, or person under subpoena
符. network
未. slave
程. slave-owner
常. bank of the united states
条. timber company
当. u.s. job applicants or employees
情. Army and Air Force Exchange Service
口. Atomic Energy Commission
合. Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force
车. Department or Secretary of Agriculture
实. Alien Property Custodian
组. Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army
版. Board of Immigration Appeals
周. Bureau of Indian Affairs
址. Bonneville Power Administration
记. Benefits Review Board
二. Civil Aeronautics Board
同. Bureau of the Census
业. Central Intelligence Agency
权. Commodity Futures Trading Commission
其. Department or Secretary of Commerce
进. Comptroller of Currency
试. Consumer Product Safety Commission
验. Civil Rights Commission
料. Civil Service Commission, U.S.
传. Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs
述. Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission
集. Drug Enforcement Agency
多. Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)
无. Department or Secretary of Energy
员. Department or Secretary of the Interior
报. Department of Justice or Attorney General
他. Department or Secretary of State
無. Department or Secretary of Transportation
服. Department or Secretary of Education
线. U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner
这. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
制. Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator
将. Federal Aviation Agency or Administration
处. Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director
高. Federal Bureau of Prisons
子. Farm Credit Administration
道. Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)
章. Federal Credit Union Administration
手. Food and Drug Administration
库. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
三. Federal Energy Administration
从. Federal Election Commission
支. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
家. Federal Housing Administration
长. Federal Home Loan Bank Board
付. Federal Labor Relations Authority
秒. Federal Maritime Board
路. Federal Maritime Commission
完. Farmers Home Administration
象. Federal Parole Board
则. Federal Power Commission
现. Federal Railroad Administration
京. Federal Reserve Board of Governors
转. Federal Reserve System
辑. Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation
限. Federal Trade Commission
力. Federal Works Administration, or Administrator
学. General Accounting Office
外. Comptroller General
调. General Services Administration
项. Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare
北. Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services
工. Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
笑. Interstate Commerce Commission
监. Indian Claims Commission
任. Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement
相. Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of
微. Information Security Oversight Office
册. Department or Secretary of Labor
联. Loyalty Review Board
平. Legal Services Corporation
增. Merit Systems Protection Board
听. Multistate Tax Commission
解. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
等. Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy
得. National Credit Union Administration
收. National Endowment for the Arts
安. National Enforcement Commission
价. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
藏. National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer
命. National Mediation Board
应. National Railroad Adjustment Board
看. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
索. National Security Agency
资. Office of Economic Opportunity
产. Office of Management and Budget
串. Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator
布. Office of Personnel Management
原. Occupational Safety and Health Administration
知. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission
级. Office of Workers' Compensation Programs
水. Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of
击. Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)
好. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
物. U.S. Public Health Service
放. Postal Rate Commission
亿. Provider Reimbursement Review Board
经. Renegotiation Board
模. Railroad Adjustment Board
之. Railroad Retirement Board
台. Subversive Activities Control Board
州. Small Business Administration
配. Securities and Exchange Commission
画. Social Security Administration or Commissioner
统. Selective Service System
共. Department or Secretary of the Treasury
连. Tennessee Valley Authority
海. United States Forest Service
节. United States Parole Commission
退. Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster
間. United States Sentencing Commission
比. Veterans' Administration
问. War Production Board
至. Wage Stabilization Board
备. General Land Office of Commissioners
你. Transportation Security Administration
黑. Surface Transportation Board
或. U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp.
与. Reconstruction Finance Corp.
影. Department or Secretary of Homeland Security
话. Unidentifiable
视. International Entity
Answer:

Answer: 标