Court Opinion

ID: 9719062
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:41:45.132065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:04.399945
License: Public Domain

DYKMAN, J.
(dissenting). It is undisputed that 15 U.S.C. sec. 381 (1988) was enacted to overturn Northwestern States Portland Cement Co. v. Minnesota, 358 U.S. 450 (1959), and to dispel the "serious apprehension" about that case. It is also undisputed that Congress intended to exempt not only solicitation, but "also those acts which, according to custom and practice in the par*580ticular industry, are those that lead to the placing of orders by customers" Maj. op. at 569. Therefore, the majority should have analyzed this case in the context of the manner by which the chewing gum industry sells its product. Instead, the majority adds up acts that it concludes make a list long enough to take Wrigley out from the protection of 15 U.S.C. sec. 381.
The circuit court focused on the way chewing gum is sold. Eighty-five to ninety percent of Wrigley's sales managers' time is spent soliciting. Over ninety percent of Wrigley's sales are "impulse sales." Thus, a customer's observation of a Wrigley product must create the desire to purchase, or the business activity fails. If the customer, when observing a Wrigley display, recalls a taste of stale gum, or if the display is sloppy, dirty, or unattractive in any way, the sale may not occur. The display must contain the customer's preferred flavor. It is not surprising therefore, that a Wrigley's sales manager does whatever necessary to maintain an attractive display. His or her activities in relation to that display are therefore without a doubt for the purpose of "inducing customers to place orders."
Of course, the sales managers did not tend to the displays in a. vacuum. When Pennsylvania focused on the use of a company car as evidence that sales managers were doing more than "mere solicitation" the court replied, "Congress could hardly have intended to exempt only walking solicitors." United States Tobacco Co. v. Commonwealth, 386 A.2d 471, 478 (Pa.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 880 (1978).
Congress could have hardly intended to exempt solicitors without records or a place to keep them, or to make exemption dependent upon whether solicitors met on occasion to compare notes or hear of the latest fad in consumer taste. With eighty-five to ninety percent of a *581sales representative's time spent soliciting, and some time devoted to record keeping, very little time remained to engage in the list of duties the majority finds dispositive.
I would view these other activities, not by the length of the list, but as the de minimis result reached when all are totalled. When I do so, I reach the same result as did the circuit court. I would therefore affirm and not reach the question of whether an interest penalty is applied.