Opinion ID: 408097
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Gandy Dairy.

Text: 99 AMPI's handling of Gandy Dairy in the Central West Texas Market Order is one unequivocal illustration of predatory conduct aimed at coercing buyers to eliminate their purchases from independents. The district court's affirmative findings of fact and underlying record evidence may be summarized briefly. See Midwest Milk, supra, 510 F.Supp. at 474. 100 Prior to May of 1971, Gandy Dairy purchased all of its Grade A milk from AMPI. In March and April of that year, however, Gandy arranged to purchase part of its supply from four independents. An AMPI official met with Gandy in April to discuss such purchases and, according to one Gandy participant, expressed AMPI's disappointment and indicated he didn't know what his people might do    There were two or three possibilities. 20 AMPI's response became clear. The very day that the independent shipments commenced, AMPI began short-shipping Gandy and making late deliveries of the milk which it did deliver. Simultaneously, AMPI's Gold Spot Division began soliciting Gandy's customers, offering them competing products at prices close to Gandy's cost of production. The purpose and intent of these efforts was to get Gandy to return to AMPI for its full requirements of milk. Id. 101 Although the supply shorting and late deliveries persisted only briefly, they functioned as a warning to Gandy of the disruption it risked by making independent purchases. Similarly, the solicitations of Gandy's customers-perhaps lawful under other circumstances-were clearly part of the effort to put further pressure on Gandy. The conduct as a whole was blatantly predatory. 102 AMPI's defense essentially is that its Gandy Dairy efforts were not directed specifically at NFO and that, in any event, NFO was not causally harmed because Gandy's decision not to purchase NFO milk was based upon price considerations, not AMPI's conduct. We find this unpersuasive. NFO was actively soliciting Gandy at the time of AMPI's predatory conduct. By definition, AMPI's attempts to secure a full-supply arrangement are directed at eliminating all non-AMPI suppliers. Moreover, the record shows that while price may have been a significant factor in Gandy's negotiations with NFO, it also shows that Gandy officials feared further AMPI retaliation if they made additional independent purchases beyond those which initially triggered the predatory conduct. On this record, to adopt AMPI's position would mean that clearly predatory conduct is excused when it is only partially successful or only one factor influencing the target company. We decline to adopt such a position. 21 AMPI's unlawful conduct toward Gandy is also significant because it tends to show an unlawful intent behind similar AMPI conduct which was directed even more specifically at NFO. See Kansas City Star Co. v. United States, 240 F.2d 643, 650-651 (8th Cir. 1957) (kindred acts doctrine). 103