Court Opinion

ID: 3869732
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-06 09:04:02.809936+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:37.727591
License: Public Domain

I am unable to agree with the majority of the court in sustaining the exceptions of the defendant numbered 239, 240, 254, 256, 257 and 274.
While the defendant's requests to charge, covered by exceptions numbered 239 and 240, embrace substantially correct statements of the law they had been fully covered *Page 320 
in the charge already given and the court was not in error in refusing to give them undue prominence through repetition.
The remaining four exceptions relating to portions of the charge given upon the requests of the plaintiff, numbered 3, 5, 6 and 23, I will discuss briefly.
The third request is, "That there is no evidence in the case that the plaintiff knew of or had any scheme to monopolize quicksilver and that if Joseph H. Hoadley or the defendant had any such scheme in his mind which was illegal, which was not communicated to the plaintiff's agent such illegal scheme in the mind of Hoadley could not be imputed to the plaintiff, the McNear Company."
The twenty-third request is, "There is no evidence of any conspiracy or agreement between the plaintiff and defendant to control or fix prices or to restrain trade."
The defendant argues that the charge of the third request took from the jury the question whether the plaintiff knew of or had any scheme to monopolize quicksilver and that the charge of the twenty-third request was virtually telling the jury to find for the plaintiff upon the question of the restraint of trade and that these requests as charged were inconsistent with, and contradictory of, another portion of the charge which is, "And so you take the testimony relating to the communications from Hoadley to McNear and from McNear to Hoadley and determine from the evidence whether or not there was a conspiracy between them in view of what happened between these gentlemen and the American and British Company."
The two portions of the charge covered by the third and twenty-third requests may be considered separately. Taking the first part of the third request, "That there is no evidence in the case that the plaintiff knew of or had any scheme to monopolize quicksilver" there is certainly no evidence that the plaintiff had originated or adopted any such scheme. The defendant says that the plaintiff knew of such a scheme and in substantiation of that statement makes *Page 321 
reference to the testimony of John F. McNear that he knew Hoadley was trying to buy up all the output and that he was doing all in his power to help him. To treat this testimony fairly it must be considered in connection with other testimony in the case. In the first place the purchase of or the attempt to purchase the entire output of the California mines could not be considered as an attempt to obtain a monopoly in restraint of trade and for the purpose of unduly enhancing prices if the object of the purchase was legitimate. This admission of McNear that he was trying to help Hoadley buy up the California output, in view of other undisputed facts, cannot be characterized as evidence showing knowledge on the part of McNear that Hoadley was engaged in conducting an illegal enterprise and there was no evidence that McNear participated in or had any knowledge of any plan on the part of Hoadley to fix the selling price of quicksilver at a figure which would operate as a restraint of trade.
The object of Hoadley as it was again and again brought to the attention of McNear was to obtain quicksilver for the Russian and Canadian governments and the quantity which Hoadley contemplated acquiring for that purpose was within the limits of their reasonable requirements. To say, as the defendant does, in substance, that because McNear knew that Hoadley was trying to get the California output he must have known that it was for an illegal purpose, is assuming something which the testimony does not warrant. I think the trial court was correct in saying that there was no evidence that the plaintiff knew that Hoadley was trying to create a monopoly for illegal purposes.
As to the latter part of the third request it is unnecessary to argue that any illegal scheme in the mind of Hoadley which was not communicated to the plaintiff or to its agent John F. McNear could not be imputed to the plaintiff. The defendant also further argues that the latter portion of the third request took away from the jury any consideration as to whether it might be inferred from facts and circumstances that the plaintiff's agent knew of an illegal scheme *Page 322 
although Hoadley had not directly communicated it. This question however was distinctly left to the jury as I shall have occasion to point out later.
The meaning of the twenty-third request seems to me to be clear. Conspiracy has been defined to be a combination of persons for an evil purpose; an agreement between two or more persons to commit in concert some reprehensible, injurious or illegal act. There was no evidence of any such agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant. The court had already pointed out to the jury that the plaintiff and defendant were both corporations and that they could only act through authorized agents. The language of the court that there was no evidence of any conspiracy or agreement to fix prices, etc., between the plaintiff and defendant was strictly correct. That the court was referring to the parties as corporations is obvious. That such was the meaning of the court is clearly evidenced by a later portion of the charge in which the court submitted to the jury the question, "Was there an agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant, these two corporations, acting through their respective agents to do an unlawful act" and further on the court charged the jury to "take the testimony relating to the communications from Hoadley to McNear and from McNear to Hoadley and determine from the evidence whether or not there was a conspiracy between them in view of what happened between these gentlemen and the American 
British Company."
Again the court said, "it is for you gentlemen to determine if there was a conspiracy between the McNear Company and the American  British Company for that purpose and in violation of the law."
Still later the court said, "If you find from the evidence that Joseph H. Hoadley and John A. McNear conspired to artificially raise the price of quicksilver in this country or any state thereof, and the contracts sued upon were executed in furtherance of such conspiracy, then your verdict must be for the defendant." *Page 323 
And finally the court said, "it is for you gentlemen to consider the evidence relating to those matters and to the excuse offered by the defendant, and, if the defendant shows by a fair preponderance of the evidence that it was justified in repudiating the contracts and in not going on with them or with either of them or both of them, then your verdict would be for the defendant."
So far as appears the only authority which was vested in Hoadley by the defendant was the negotiation of the contracts of January 28 and February 9 and the only evidence that the defendant conferred that authority is its acceptance of the transfer and its undertaking to assume all liabilities of the plaintiff thereunder which it later repudiated.
There is no inconsistency between these two requests, numbered three and twenty-three, and that portion of the charge wherein the court instructed the jury to take the testimony relating to the communications from Hoadley to McNear and from McNear to Hoadley and determine from the evidence whether or not there was a conspiracy between them, in view of what happened between these gentlemen and the American  British Company.
From the reading of the charge as a whole it is apparent that the trial court sought to distinguish between a conspiracy evidenced by an actual agreement between the parties and a conspiracy which might be inferred from their relations evidenced by the letters, telegrams and telephonic conversations which passed between Hoadley and McNear and to bring to the minds of the jury the precise question which, under the testimony, it was their province to decide, that is, Did the communications which passed between McNear and Hoadley show a conspiracy between the plaintiff and the defendant?
It must be remembered that these contracts were entered into between the plaintiff and defendant and not between the plaintiff and Hoadley. There is absolutely no direct evidence that the plaintiff and defendant conspired together and there is no direct evidence that Hoadley was endeavoring *Page 324 
to set up a conspiracy at the instigation of the defendant, with its knowledge or for its benefit. If there was such a conspiracy it must be determined by way of inference from facts and circumstances connected with the transactions carried on between McNear and Hoadley. The trial court in submitting the case to the jury explicitly stated to them no less than four times that the question of conspiracy must in determined by them after considering the testimony relating to the communications between McNear and Hoadley.
This instruction having been repeatedly given to the jury with such distinctness, I cannot see how any doubt or confusion could have arisen in their minds as to whether the question of conspiracy was left to them. There is nothing in the record suggesting that any such doubt or confusion existed and there was sufficient testimony upon which the jury might find the verdict which it did.
The majority opinion finds reversible error in that portion of the charge of the trial court relating to the Sherman Act. Assuming that the view expressed by the court was an erroneous one, it was harmless error under the circumstances of the case. As before stated the question of conspiracy, as evidenced by the various communications between Hoadley and McNear, was submitted to the jury and upon consideration of the evidence the jury found that there was no conspiracy. If there was no conspiracy then there could have been none under the Sherman Act and the exclusion of that Act from the jury would not be prejudicial to the defendant. The jury were left free to find conspiracy at common law or under the laws of California if, in their judgment, the evidence warranted such finding.
I think that the exceptions which the majority opinion sustains should be overruled and that the case should be remitted for judgment for the plaintiff on the verdict.