Court Opinion

ID: 8754991
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 11:42:45.040582+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:01:11.866179
License: Public Domain

GILBERT, Circuit Judge,
after stating the case as above, delivered the opinion of the court.
The question presented is whether the complaint states a cause of action. It alleges that an interstate trade in lumber had existed between purchasers in the city of Portland, in the state of Oregon, and manufacturers at Vancouver, in the state of AVashington, about seven miles distant from Portland, and that the defendants in error, who constitute all the manufacturers of lumber in the city of Portland, formed ■a combination for the purpose of preventing the importation of lumber from the state of Washington for use in Portland, and that they adopted means such as to accomplish their purpose. It is contended by the defendants in error: First. That the combination does not operate, directly upon the manufacture, sale, or transportation of an article of interstate commerce; that it only incidentally and collaterally relates to or affects the sale and transportation of lumber from another state, and that it is therefore not within the prohibition of the act. Second. That the injury complained of by the plaintiff in error was not the direct or unavoidable result of an illegal combination, but that such injury, if any, resulted from the refusal of the defendants in error to deal with the plaintiff in error except upon terms acceptable to them. The interpretation of the statute applicable to the case is found in Anderson v. United States, 171 U. S. 615, 19 Sup. Ct. 54, 43 L. Ed. 300, in which it was said:
“Where the subject-matter of the agreement does not directly relate to and act upon and embrace interstate commerce, and where the undisputed facts clearly show that the purpose of the agreement was not to regulate, obstruct, or restrain that commerce, but that it was entered into with the object of properly and fairly regulating the transaction of the business in which the parties to the agreement were engaged, such agreement will be upheld as not within the statute, where it can be seen that the character and terms of the agreement are well calculated to attain the purpose for which it was formed, and where the effect of its formation and enforcement upon interstate trade or commerce is in any event but indirect and incidental, and not its purpose or object. * * * If an agreement of that nature, while apt and proper for the purpose thus intended, should possibly, though only indirectly and unintentionally, affect interstate trade or commerce, in that event we think the agreement would be good; otherwise there is scarcely any agreement among men which has interstate or foreign commerce for its subject that may not remotely be said to in some obscure way affect that commerce, and to be therefore void.”
Also, in United States v. Joint Traffic Association, 171 U. S. 568, 19 Sup. Ct. 31, 43 L. Ed. 259, where it was said:
“The effect upon interstate commerce must not be indirect or incidental only. An agreement entered into for the purpose of promoting the legitimate *186business of an individual or corporation, with no purpose to thereby affect or restrain interstate commerce, and which does not directly restrain such commerce, is not, as we think, covered by the act, although the agreement may indirectly and remotely affect that commerce.”
Does the combination which is set forth in the complaint in the present case tend directly to restrain interstate commerce? The complaint alleges that such was its purpose, and that such is its effect. Notwithstanding these allegations, however, it is clear that, if it can be seen from the facts set forth that the restraint is only indirect and incidental, no cause of action is stated within the intendment of the act. But it is equally clear that the distinct allegation of the purpose of such a combination may be taken into consideration in connection with the facts alleged. If it be true that the purpose of the defendants in error was as alleged, how can it be said of any means which they adopt to effectuate the purpose that they accomplish it only indirectly and incidentally? It is true that the complaint alleges the existence of another purpose — the purpose to obtain excessive and unreasonable prices for lumber; but one of the purposes alleged in attaining that end is the purpose of shutting off the Portland trade in Washington lumber. In determining whether or not the restraint of trade is the direct and necessary result of the combination, no assistance is to be found by pursuing the inquiry further and ascertaining whether its main purpose and chief effect are to foster the trade and increase the business of those engaged in it. It may be conceded that the main purpose of all such combinations is to foster the trade and increase the profits of those who-are engaged in them, that the restraint of interstate trade as such is not their ultimate object, and that the effect of the combination on interstate trade is to the members of the combination an immaterial matter. Nor is it material, we think, to inquire what is the chief effect of the combination? The true inquiry is, does it tend directly to appreciably restrain interstate commerce? It is not material to ascertain just what proportion the resulting restraint of interstate commerce bears to other effects or results of the combination. Nor is the court called upon to weigh the effects, or to determine that, if the effect in restraining interstate trade is not so considerable as other effects, the combination is not forbidden. In the case of W. W. Montague & Co. v. Lowry et al., 24 Sup. Ct. 307, 48 L. Ed. 608, in which the Supreme Court very recently affirmed the judgment of this court, a combination was made-between certain dealers of tiles, mantels, and grates in the cities of San Francisco, Sacramento, and San José, who were members of an association formed for the purposes of the combination, and all of the manufacturers of such articles in the other states of the Union. By the-terms of the agreement the manufacturers bound themselves not to sell goods in San Francisco, or within a radius of 200 miles therefrom, to-any one who was not a member of the association. There was no-manufacturer of such goods in California. The plaintiffs who brought the action were dealers in tiles, but not members of the association. They were unable to purchase goods of the manufacturers. The only reatraint on trade was that which resulted from the inability of the plaintiffs to buy goods on equal terms with members of the association fci» use at their place of business in San Francisco. It could not be *187demonstrated in that case that by reason of the- agreement the total amount of interstate trade would be at all diminished. But the Supreme Court held that it was sufficient if it could be seen that the tendency of the combination was such as to diminish such interstate trade. Said the court, “The amount of trade in the commodity is not very material.”
The defendants in error admit that the business of importing lumber from the state of Washington into the city of Portland may be affected by the combination; but they say that the result is due, not to their combination to refuse to sell to purchasers in the city of Portland who make such importations, but to the inability of the Washington mills to supply the Portland market with kiln-dried or finishing lumber ; and that the combination is not the direct and proximate cause of the inability of the Washington mills to sell lumber in the city of Portland. But that very inability is one of the essential facts which aid to create the situation which is complained of. It is a fact conceded to exist, and it is taken advantage of by the defendants in error. But for the existence of that fact, it is safe to assert that the combination would not have been formed. The facts must be reckoned with as they are found. Can it be said that the absence of factories and plants outside of the combination capable of producing finishing lumber so as to compete with the defendants in error shall relieve them from responsibility for their acts ? Does the fact that the whole combination and its success are made possible by the adventitious circumstance that no one has yet seen fit to invest the capital necessary to establish a competing plant at Vancouver render the restraint of interstate commerce effected by the combination any the less direct and necessary ? If such is the law, it follows that, to secure immunity for every such combination, it is necessary only to bring into it all manufacturers of its line of goods, and to intrench it behind the proposition that the resulting restraint of crade comes, not from the combination, but from the inability of others to supply the market. The mere statement of the proposition is its refutation. With equal reason it might have been urged in the Montague Case that the restraint of interstate trade was owing, not to the ■combination, but to the fact that there was no independent manufacturer ■of tiles from whom the plaintiffs in that case could purchase.
The opinion of the trial court in sustaining the demurrers seems to have been largely influenced by the argument that if the defendants in error, instead of combining to advance prices and to refuse to sell to certain purchasers, had combined to reduce the prices of all kinds of lumber to all purchasers, it would have had an equal tendency to destroy the trade in lumber between Vancouver and Portland, and yet in so doing the defendants in error could not have been accused of acting unlawfully in restraint of that trade. But is this argument sound, and does it lead to the conclusion which was reached by the court? We submit that a combination which is made for the specific purpose of restraining interstate trade and which accomplishes that purpose, restrains it directly, and that, if such be its intention and its direct tendency, it is under the ban of the act, whether it include an agreement to raise prices or an agreement to lower them. The mere agreement to raise or lower prices, as was said by the court in the E. C. Knight Case, 156 U. S. 16, *18815 Sup. Ct. 255, 39 L. Ed. 325, might tend to restrain external trade, “but the restraint would be an indirect result, however inevitable and whatever its extent; and such result would not necessarily determine the object of the contract, combination, or conspiracy.” But this is far from saying that a combination to raise or lower prices aimed directly at the destruction of a particular branch of interstate trade would accomplish that result indirectly, and therefore lawfully. In United States v. Freight Association, 166 U. S. 328, 17 Sup. Ct. 554, 41 L. Ed. 1007, the court, referring to the terms of the act, said:
“The plain and ordinary meaning of such language is not limited to that kind of contract alone which is in unreasonable restraint of trade, but all contracts are included in such language, and no exception or limitation can be added without placing in the act that which has been omitted by Congress.”
The same view was reaffirmed in United States v. Joint Traffic Association, 171 U. S. 558, 19 Sup. Ct. 25, 43 L. Ed. 259. In United States v. Swift & Co. (C. C.) 122 Fed. 534, Judge Grosscup, referring to the doctrine of the two cases just cited, well said:
“It is clear from them that restraint of trade is not dependent upon any consideration of reasonableness or unreasonableness in the combination averred: nor is it to be tested by the prices that result from the combination. Indeed, combination that leads directly to lower prices to the consumer may, within the doctrine of these cases, even as against the consumer, be restraint of trade; and combination that leads directly to higher prices may, as against the producer, be restraint of trade. The statute, thus interpreted, has no concern with prices, but looks solely to competition, and to the giving of competition full play, by making illegal any effort at restriction upon competition.”
From the recent case of Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U. S. 197, 24 Sup. Ct. 436, 48 L. Ed. 679, it would appear that when the questions involved in the opinions of the Supreme Court in the two cases last above quoted shall again come before that court for consideration the majority of the members of the court may hold that the rulings in those cases should have gone no further than to decide that the contracts there presented were unreasonable restraint of interstate trade, and were, as such, within the scope of the act. But if we adopt that view of the law, and assume that the purpose of the act was to place a statutory prohibition only on those combinations which are unreasonable and against public policy, as well as in direct restraint of interstate trade, the present combination, as it is set forth in the complaint, clearly comes within the prohibition. The complaint alleges that the prices placed upon all lumber by the defendants in error are excessive and unreasonable, and that for unfinished lumber their price is double the price of Vancouver lumber of the same kind. The. combination, as it is stated in the complaint, is more than a mere agreement to raise prices. It includes also an agreement to coerce purchasers of lumber by other means, and to compel them to desist from the interstate trade. Taking together all the allegations of the complaint, it appears that an active trade in lumber between the Vancouver mills and the Portland consumers of lumber has been restrained by the acts of the defendants in error. By combining as they did they wielded a power that no individual action could possess. They possessed the power to *189ruin the business of any Portland contractor who imported lumber from the adjoining state, and they exercised that power. Restraint of the trade resulted therefrom, and the restraint was the direct and necessary result of a combination made to carry out that specific purpose.. If the allegations of the complaint be true, the defendants in error have violated the prohibition of the act, and are answerable to the plaintiff in error in damages.
The judgment of the Circuit Court is reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with these views.