Court Opinion

ID: 9719116
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:42:47.344335+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:04.680358
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, J.
I concur in the majority opinion. However, for the guidance of the trial court and all parties, section 17042 of the Business and Professions Code, requires a more analytical comment. Any justification for classification under that section relates to a distributive classification within the course of business in which the classifier is engaged, i.e., the thrust of justification is upon the word “functional” as contained in the section. So far as pertinent here, the section reads: “Nothing in this chapter prohibits any of the following:. . .(b) A functional classification by any person of any customer as broker, jobber, wholesaler or retailer.” (Italics added.)
Providing Times Mirror seeks support for its differentiation of charges by calling plaintiff a wholesaler rather than a retailer, the support fails. Plaintiff is not Times Mirror’s “wholesaler,” but is a customer for advertising space, equal and no different from any other customer for like space in its newspaper.
*743Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (unabridged 1966) at page 921, defines “Functional” as follows: “1 a: of, connected with or being a function...; dependently related.... b: of, relating to, or based on function or functioning... .2: existing or used to contribute to the development or maintenance of a larger whole:...”
As is readily seen, functional relates to the business of the manufacturer or producer. Here we are not considering the Times Mirror newspaper’s wholesaler-distributor v. the retailer-deliveryman, but rather a totally unrelated business entrepreneur. It is true that plaintiff is a wholesaler, but of auto parts not of advertising, and his competitor for advertising is a retailer, of auto parts not of advertising. Thus, so far as the seller of advertising space is concerned, Motors (plaintiff) is in the identical position as his competitor, the retail auto parts advertiser. There just is no functional distinction permitting a price differential so far as Times Mirror is concerned.1 (See Kelley, Functional Discounts Under the Robinson-Patman Act (1952) 40 Cal.L.Rev. 526.)
A petition for a rehearing was denied March 18, 1980, and on March 25, 1980, the opinion was modified to read as printed above. Respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied April 24, 1980.

 Price differential between the wholesaler and retailer by the manufacturer of auto parts for purchase of like parts is entirely different for the rung of distribution than has its functional aspect.