Court Opinion

ID: 9426337
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:17:36.446339+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:00.332268
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan joins, dissenting.
It is common ground in this case that the dispensation of pharmaceutical products for consumption by a hospital’s patients upon the hospital’s premises constitutes the hospital’s “own use” of the products within the meaning of 15 U. S. C. § 13c. The controversy concerns the various other “uses” of these products catalogued in the Court’s opinion. Ante, at 8-10. As to those uses the Court of Appeals expressed its views as follows:
“We may concede that in these respects distribution by the hospitals can be justified as a proper and useful community service and thus can be regarded as a proper hospital function. It is not, however, the hospitals’ ‘own use.’ . . . The purpose for which these supplies are purchased — the use to which they are to be put — is their consumption. Section 13c *24can apply here only to cases in which a hospital can be said to be the consumer. It cannot apply to cases of resale by the hospital to a private consumer.
“The hospitals here are (quite properly) accommodating patients, staff and strangers with means whereby they can conveniently purchase for their use. The question is not whether the hospitals can continue to provide this useful community service. The question is whether in providing it they may acquire the drugs for such resale at an acquisition price that discriminates against local retail druggists. We hold that they may not.” 510 F. 2d 486, 489.
I agree with the Court of Appeals and would affirm its judgment.