Court Opinion

ID: 8812253
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 15:06:45.916783+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:04:18.016601
License: Public Domain

ARSCHURER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part). In my judgment the order of the commission should be further modified by striking out the third paragraph, which relates to alleged representation that petitioner’s competitors do not deal fairly and honestly with their customers. In so far as the sugar, coffee, and tea advertisements ascribe petitioner’s asserted lower prices and superior qualities to quantity purchases and special facilities and advantages for inspection, selection, and purchasing, they would tend to negative any im*313putation upon competitors of unfair dealing with their patrons. T believe the charge of imputing to competitors unfair dealing with their patrons rests wholly on petitioner’s so-called “Caveat Emptor” advertisement in its catalogue of March and April, 1916, wherein the public is cautioned in regard to white sugar, stating that some is cane and some beet sugar, alike in appearance, but the former usually higher in price; that petitioner plainly designates which of the two it offers, and the query is suggested, where else are goods so plainly described, and whether the customer gets elsewhere what he thinks he is buying. It seems to me that this does not amount to more than a statement or boast that petitioner, without being asked, describes the white sugars it proposes to sell, and the intimation is carried that competitors do not volunteer such description, but it is not suggested that they actually misrepresent the truth.
The facts before the commission appear by stipulation, and those concerning this advertisement, aside from the advertisement itself are as follows:
“When Mr. A. M. Daly, the attorney in charge of the investigation ih these proceedings, was in Chicago, in March, 3916, he submitted to Mr. A. Y. H. Mory, chief chemist of Sears, Roebuck & Co., and Mr. Joseph Scott, manager of the grocery department, a copy of the advertisement entitled ‘Caveat Bmptor’ hereinbefore mentioned, and hereto attached, and requested them to state their views as to this particular advertisement and what it meant. They stated that this advertisement was for the purpose of calling attention to the distinction between beet sugar and cane sugar and laying stress upon the point of the facilities that Sears, Roebuck & Co. have for marking everything plainly so that the customer would know better from description the exact nature of what he was buying. After this explanation Mr. Daly went to his hotel. In a short time Mr. Mory called on him there and stated in substance that lie had submitted the above-mentioned advertisement to Mr. A. H. Loeb, the vice president of Sears, Roebuck & Co., and that Mr. Loeb said that this course of advertising was unfair and unjust and declared that it must be discontinued, and further that it was against the policy of the house to send out such advertisements. Thereupon, on March 28, 1916, Mr. A. V. H. Mory, chief chemist, wrote to the commission in part as follows: ‘The young man who wrote this was in to-day and I pointed out to him wherein he had made a mistake and acted against house policy. He promised to use the soft pedal on all references to the dealer in the future. Ho tells me that this is an angle that had not occurred to him. He had not thought of the write-up in the light of a criticism of the dealer, so intent was he on pointing out that with our system of marking everything plainly and our facilities for knowing what we are selling the customer would know better from our description the-exact nature of what he was buying, in the case of those things difficult to judge than if he had them placed before him — which of course is true.’ ”
But assuming, as did petitioner’s vice president, that this advertisement does carry the imputation that competitors deal unfairly with their customers, under the circumstances indicated by the quotation ought this advertisement to be the basis of a finding and order ? The publication was in the catalogue for March and April, 1916. The complaint was filed nearly two years afterwards. The act authorizes the commission to proceed when it shall have reason to believe that unfair methods of competition are or have been used, “and if it shall appear to the commission that a proceeding by it in respect thereof would be of interest to the public.” In a monitory proceeding such *314as this seems to be, it could hardly be said that it would be “of interest to the public” to predicate action on a transgression for which due amends had long before been made, without remotest cause to believe there would be a repetition. To revive a stale advertisement of this nature which the advertiser immediately after the publication distinctly disavowed as having been unintentionally and inadvertently unfair to competitors, and ordered discontinued, without directly or indirectly repeating or renewing it for so long an interval, far from subserv-ing the public interest, might, in my judgment, have the contrary tendency of raising an imputation of oppressive or at least uncalled-for action, in predicating any proceeding or order on this advertisement.
Nor am I impressed with the authoritative relevancy here of decisions respecting injunctions. In a proceeding such as this, neither remedial nor punitive, decisions of courts respecting injunctional relief in equity are not more analogous than are common-law decisions defining. unfair trade practices, arising out of controversies between individuals, as fixing thereby the limitation of the commission’s authority or scope.
The suggested modification would necessitate corresponding modification of the commission’s findings of facts, eliminating paragraphs numbered 4 and 5 thereof. Paragraphs 2, 6 and 7 (as well as paragraphs 4 and 5) of the findings state the circulation of the several advertisements to have been in each case for “more than two years last past,” indicating thereby the two years next before the date of the findings, which is June 24, 1918. This is no contravention of the stipulated fact that none of the advertisements were more recent than August, 1917 — some of them even antedating the passage, September 24, 1914, of the Trade Commission Act itself. These findings should, in my judgment, be modified to comply with the stipulated facts.