Court Opinion

ID: 7934378
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-08 23:07:56.18405+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:33:29.018907
License: Public Domain

Chamkdin, J.
I concur with the Chief Justice in dismissing the bill of complaint, for reasons which render it unnecessary to discuss the merits of the controversy between the parties.
It appears from the testimony that the Diamond Match Company was organized for the purpose of controlling the manufacture and trade in matches in the United States and Canada. The object was to get all the manufacturers of matches in the United States to enter into a combination and agreement, by which the manufacture and output of all the match factories should be controlled by the Diamond Match Campany. Those manufacturers who would not enter into the scheme were to be bought out, those who .proposed to engage in the business were to be bought off, and a strict watch was to be exercised to discover any person who proposed to engage in such business, that he might be prevented, if possible.
All who entered into the combination, and all who were bought off, were required to enter into bonds to the Diamond Match Company that they would not, directly or indirectly, engage in the manufacture or sale of friction matches, nor aid. nor assist nor encourage any one else in said business, where, by doing so, it might conflict with the business interests, or diminish the sales, or lessen the profits, of the Diamond Match Company. These restrictions varied in individual cases as to the time it was to continue, from 10 to 20 years. Thirty-one manufacturers, being, substantially, all the factories where *660matches were made in the United States, either went into the combination, or were purchased by the Diamond Match Company, and out of this number all were closed except about 13.
Gen. Alger was a witness in the case, and was asked by his counsel the following question:
“It appears that during the years 1881 and 1882 large Rums of money were expended to keep men out of the match business, remove competition, buy machinery and patents, and in some instances purchase other match factories. I will ask you to state the reasons, if any there are, why those sums should not be treated as an expense' of the business, and charged off from this account ?”
To which he replied:
“Because the price of matches was kept up to correspond,'so as to pay these expenses, and make large dividends above what could have been made had those factories been in the market to compete with the business.”
It also appears from the testimony of Gen. Alger that the organization of the Diamond Match Company was in a measure due to his exertions. There is no doubt that all the parties to this suit were active participants in per. fecting the combination called “The Diamond Match Company,” and that the present dispute grows out of that transaction, and is the fruit of the scheme by which all competition in the manufacture of matches was stifled, opposition in the business crushed, and the whole business of the country in that line engrossed by the Diamond Match Company. \Such a vast combination as has been entered into under the above name is a menace to the public. Its object and direct tendency is to prevent free and fair competition, and control prices throughout the national domain. It is no answer to say that this monopoly has in fact reduced the price of friction matches. That policy may have been necessary to crush competition. The fact exists that it rests in the discretion of *661this company at any time to raise the price to an exorbitant degree. Such combinations have frequently been condemned by courts as unlawful, and against public Hooker v. Vandewater, 4 Denio, 349; Stanton v. Allen, 5 Id. 434; Coal Co. v. Coal Co., 68 Pa. St. 186; Salt Co. v. Guthrie, 35 Ohio St. 672; Craft v. McConoughy, 79 Ill. 346; Hoffman v. Brooks, 11 Week. Crim. Law Bul. 258; Hannah v. Fife, 27 Mich. 172; Alger v. Thacher, 19 Pick. 51.
It is also well settled that, if a contract be void as against public policy, the court will neither enforce it while executory, nor relieve a party from loss by having performed it in part. Foote v. Emerson, 10 Vt. 344; and see Hanson v. Power, 8 Dana, 91; Pratt v. Adams, 7 Paige, 616; Piatt v. Oliver, 1 McLean, 280, 2 Id. 277; Stanton v. Allen, 5 Denio, 434.
It is not necessary that the parties, or either of them, should rely upon the fact that the contract is one which it is against the policy of the law to enforce. Courts will take notice, of their own motion, of illegal contracts which come before them for adjudication, and will leave the parties where they have placed themselves.
Campbell, J., concurred with Ohamplin, J.