Court Opinion

ID: 9640612
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:09:48.680426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:07.990533
License: Public Domain

STONE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I am unfortunate in not being able to see tbe evidence in the same way as the majority of the court. While appellant attacks the sufficiency of the petition and also the admission of several pieces of evidence, the main controversy here is the sufficiency of the evidence. This being true, it is not useful in a dissent to discuss the minor issues more than to state that I find no basis tor the challenges of the petition or of the admissions of evidence.
The attacks upon tho sufficiency of the evidence are (1) that it failed to show discrimination in prices between different purchasers; (2) that it showed differences in grade and quality of the gloves, justifying price differences; (3) that it failed to show the effect would be lessoning of competition or tendency to create monopoly.
(1) As to discrimination in prices between different customers, there was evidence which, if believed by the jury, would justify a conclusion that the cheaper glove was being offered only to customers of appellee with the statement that there was only a limited quantity and that purchases must be made immediately. The natural effect of this would be to stock up such customers, resulting in loss of business to appellee, while the regular customers of appellant were not informed of this cheaper glove and would continue to pay the regular price for substantially the same glove. Where appellant’s own customers did find out, from other sources, of the cheaper glove, it seems they could get it, but that glove was offered to and pushed upon a preferred line of purchasers — customers of appellee.
(2) Much of tho evidence in the record is devoted to the question of whether the cheaper glove ($1.32%) was different in grade or quality from the higher priced glove ($1.55). I cannot read the evidence as to this as being undisputed. That of appellant tended to show many differences — such as in the grade of flannel used, in the grade of wrist tubing, in the grade of material used for the thumb patch, in the care and costs of manufacture (cutting, stitching, character of workmen, and of inspection). However, appellee countered with evidence from experienced persons that the two gloves were substantially tho same. This raised a conflict in the testimony.
(3) As to competition and monopoly, appellee showed that appellant was the largest concern of its kind; that appellee was a small concern with more limited trade territory; that the cheaper glove was offered by appellant to appellee’s customers at a price below appellee’s cost of manufacture; that this offer was concentrated on such customers. If these things bo true (as the jury might find them to be), not only the natural, but the inevitable, result would be to lessen competition by driving appellee out of business and *772also thereby and to that extent tend to create a monopoly in appellant.
I think that the evidence was sufficient in the respects in which it is attacked, that there was no error in the trial, and that the judgment should be affirmed.