Opinion ID: 3012168
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Minimum Retail Prices

Text: We can dispense quickly with the milk consumers’ challenge to the retail price floors. The dormant Commerce Clause does not prevent a state from forcing its residents to pay more for a product if no out-of-state interests are affected. The intervenor-plaintiffs presented evidence that the retail price floors harm Pennsylvania milk consumers because lower prices are available in Maryland. But they failed to present any evidence that the retail price floors burden interstate commerce by harming out-of-state interests, and thus their dormant Commerce Clause argument fails. See United Dairy Farmers Coop. Ass’n v. Milk Control Comm’n, 335 F. Supp. 1008, 1014 (M.D. Pa.) (rejecting attack on Pennsylvania’s minimum retail prices where the plaintiff failed to introduce evidence that the retail price floors obstructed interstate commerce), aff ’d, 404 U.S. 930 (1971) (mem.). We note, however, that had the intevenor-plaintiffs introduced evidence that the minimum retail prices, for instance, impede out-of-state retailers’ ability to compete in the Pennsylvania milk market or artificially inflate retail prices in other states (by reducing price competition among retailers within the region), the result might be different. _________________________________________________________________ minimum wholesale prices in Pennsylvania. Cloverland says it has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales as a result. The District Court refused to consider testimony by Cloverland employees regarding the offers made by Pennsylvania dealers, deeming it inadmissible hearsay. However, a statement offering to sell a product at a particular price is a verbal act, not hearsay, because the statement itself has legal effect. See Fed. R. Evid. 801 advisory committee’s note; United States v. Montana, 199 F.3d 947, 950 (7th Cir. 1999); Trepel v. Roadway Express, Inc., 194 F.3d 708, 717 (6th Cir. 1999). 25