Opinion ID: 375781
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Services or Facilities Issue

Text: 8 Amoco urges, as an alternative ground for affirmance of the judgment, that the failure to deliver the carpet backing was not, as a matter of law, a denial of a service or facility within the meaning of § 2(e). 11 Amoco maintains that § 2(e)'s use of the words services or facilities encompasses only merchandising services or facilities, and cites language to that effect from one case, Skinner v. United States Steel Corp., 233 F.2d 762, 765-66 (5th Cir. 1956). 12 Amoco also points to the Federal Trade Commission Guides for Advertising Allowances and Other Merchandising Payments and Services, 16 C.F.R. § 240.5 (1979), which contains a list of services or facilities that the Commission deems covered by the Act. 13 This list, says Amoco, is composed of merchandising services and does not contemplate § 2(e) coverage of a non-merchandising service such as unconditional delivery. In response, Harper merely asserts, without citation of authority, that the conduct of which it complains is within the scope of § 2(e). 9 In a case neither party mentions, this court determined that, under some circumstances, delivery is a service within the meaning of § 2(e). Centex-Winston Corp. v. Edward Hines Lumber Co., 447 F.2d 585 (7th Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 405 U.S. 921, 92 S.Ct. 956, 30 L.Ed.2d 791 (1972), held that furnishing consistently timely delivery services to favored purchasers and consistently late delivery services to a disfavored purchaser constitutes discrimination in the furnishing of a service under § 2(e). The court's broadly worded statement of its holding was that § 2(e) covers discriminatory differences in deliveries. 447 F.2d at 588. Centex-Winston also noted that the FTC Guides to the interpretation of § 2(e) do not purport to be all-inclusive 14 and are not confined solely to promotional matters. 15 Id. Thus, the court concluded that § 2(e) should not be confined to the conventional type of promotional services. Id. at 587. 10 Centex-Winston is apparently the only case to have squarely held delivery to be a service under § 2(e). It has met with some criticism, 16 the merit of which we need not examine to decide the case at bar. 17 Given the holding of Centex-Winston, the facts before us still fail to support Harper's § 2(e) claim. 11 The conduct of which Harper complains, imposing a condition that resale be overseas and demanding assurances in the form of a customer list, was not discrimination with respect to delivery services; rather, it was a refusal to go forward unconditionally with a sale. It was a breach of the contract of sale, if anything. Section 2(e) requires that the service of delivery itself be made available to purchasers on proportionally equal terms. It does not require that all conditions precedent to a delivery be identical in every transaction in like goods sold for resale. As the gravamen of Harper's complaint is discrimination with respect to a term of sale not itself a service within the meaning of § 2(e), Harper may not bring its case within the subsection by employing the label delivery. 12 Section 2(e) does not federalize the law of sales contracts or enforce equality in terms of sale other than those concerning services or facilities. That a delivery is contemplated in connection with a sale does not bring the conditions of the sale within § 2(e). Section 2(e) requires that the terms of the delivery service itself, and not the conditions of the sale, be made equally available. 13 Because the facts do not show a discrimination in services or facilities, the judgment of the district court on Harper's § 2(e) claim is affirmed. 14 Affirmed.