Opinion ID: 333774
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: full-line forcing.

Text: 47 Mr. Pitchford testified that during the damage period his organization was coerced into taking on the Pye Unicam line and the Torr X-Ray unit. He stated that, because of its poor quality and lack of profitability, he did not want to sell the Pye Unicam items. Two other employees of Pitchford also testified to the reluctance of Pitchford to distribute the Pye Unicam line. However, Mr. Pitchford stated that he was 'afraid not to take on the line' for fear of cancellation of his dealership agreement. 48 To demonstrate injury by the forcing of the Pye Unicam products, Pitchford introduced evidence that it spent $15,814 for the initial equipment, approximately $1,400 for a trailer to haul the equipment, and $5,000 to pull the trailer. Pitchford also adduced testimony that it needed a full-time salesman to sell Pye Unicam equipment in 1968, and that in 1969 time equivalent to that which one salesman would provide was expended marketing this item. The orders booked in a year by these efforts to sell the Pye Unicam equipment were approximately one-seventh of those of an average Pitchford salesman. 49 The Torr unit was also undesirable, according to Mr. Pitchford, because he felt a competitor of PEI made a better, lowerpriced X-ray. Robards testified that all PEI dealers were informed that 'they were expected to buy one of (the Torr units).' Presumably the purchase of a demonstration unit was preparatory to marketing the unit for PEI. 50 Full-line forcing is a violation of the antitrust laws only if the effect of such forcing 'may be to substantially lessen competition . . . in any line of commerce.' 17 In order to establish such a transgression, it must be shown that the seller had economic power in the market for the forcing item and that a substantial amount of commerce relating to the forced item was foreclosed. 18 51 In Fortner Enterprises, Inc. v. U.S. Steel Corp., a tying case, the Supreme Court indicated that the seller's economic power need not be a 'monopoly or even a dominant position' in the market for the tying or forcing product; economic power would be sufficient for proof of a violation if the seller imposed the restraint 'with respect to any appreciable number of buyers . . .' 19 With regard to the amount of commerce in the forced product that must be foreclosed in order to prove a violation, the Court in Fortner decided that $200,000 was not an 'insubstantial' amount of commerce. 20 52 Although Pitchford produced evidence of forcing by PEI with regard to the Pye Unicam and Torr equipment and although Pitchford's expenditures in connection with this equipment constitute the necessary fact of damage, Pitchford adduced no evidence that PEI's full-line forcing practices had any substantial effect on competition in any line of commerce. Regardless of the manufacturer's economic power, there can be no liability under a full-line forcing count absent a showing of foreclosure of competition in a substantial amount of commerce under the rule in Northern Pacific. 53 The trial judge appears to have agreed with this evaluation of the evidence, because near the conclusion of the trial he granted PEI's motion for a dismissal of this cause of action. Nonetheless the full-line forcing issue was included in the special interrogatories to the jury, 21 which returned a verdict that may have been based in part on this count. Since there had been a failure to prove an essential element of this claim, however, there was no foundation for submission of the question to the jury. 54 Accordingly, that portion of the judgment based on the jury's verdict with respect to full-line forcing will be reversed. 55