Court Opinion

ID: 9637257
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:01:30.697177+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:54.752984
License: Public Domain

*802On Petition for Rehearing.
PER CURIAM.
We granted rehearing .here to consider petitioners’ contention that the r'eversal in M. Kraus & Bros. v. United States, 66 S.Ct. 705, of our earlier decision in United States v. M. Kraus & Bros., 2 Cir., 149 F.2d 773, cited by us in the opinion herein, required reversal of this conviction. But a careful study of the four opinions rendered by the Supreme Court in that case leads us to doubt that a majority of the justices would hold the regulation here in question too limited to cover the acts charged and proved. There all the justices agreed that the Price Administrator could prohibit evasion of established price ceilings by the mere device of a tie-in sale, i. e., the requirement of a purchase of a secondary product along with the product subject to a maximum price. They divided only as to whether the regulation in question did clearly prohibit such a sale. A majority therefore held that in the absence of clear language to that effect, conviction could be had only upon proof of deficiency in value of the secondary product below its sales price and consequent break-through of the ceiling price on the main article.
flO] Here the regulation, unlike that in the Kraus case, expressly prohibited evasion “by tying-agreement.” The question is then whether this definite language supplies the gap found in the other case. Petitioners interpret the prevailing opinion there as requiring more than even these descriptive words to accomplish the outright prohibition required. ; Possibly this may be so, though the government draws a contrary conclusion and relies heavily upon Justice Murphy’s citation of our decision here. But, be that as it may, one of the concurring opinions, that of Justice Rutledge — concurred in by Justice Frankfurter, who also concurred in Justice Murphy’s opinion — appears to stress the failure of the regulation there to forbid “tie-in” sales “per se.” This would seem to us to be what the present regulation does in so many words. And seemingly the three dissenting justices would agree a fortiori. Under these circumstances of doubt that the insufficiency of the regulation is assured, we think we can appropriately maintain our view1 that a customer who is forced to buy melons, broccbli, or celery in order to buy lettuce is thereby required to give an additional consideration for the lettuce, and that there is therefore evasion of the stated price limitation “by tying-agreement.” Hence, having heard and considered the petition, we now reaffirm our former decision.
Judgment affirmed.