Court Opinion

ID: 9715996
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:23:01.737165+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:40.685920
License: Public Domain

*202Heher, J.
(concurring). The holding of Old Dearborn Distributing Co. v. Seagram-Distillers Corporation, 299 U. S. 183, 57 S. Ct. 139, 81 L. Ed. 109 (1936), was that the “non-signer” provision of the typical fair trade law, as a trade technique essential to the protection of the manufacturer’s or producer’s property interest in his trade-mark, brand or like identifying device, did not work a denial of due process of law or the equal protection of the laws or constitute an unlawful delegation of the legislative function. But the inquiry here is whether the state law comports with the security given by our own Constitution to the general principle of freedom of trade.
There is now reason to believe that the fair trade principle is used by distributors as a device to stifle price competition, in the name of protection to the producer’s property right in his trade-mark, Eli Lilly & Co. v. Schwegmann Bros. Giant Super Markets, 109 F. Supp. 269 (D. C. E. D. La. 1953), ostensibly to serve the producer’s interest, but in reality for their own gain; and such is perforce an arbitrary and unreasonable regulation of the non-signer’s business and a delegation of the legislative power in violation of our own Constitution.
The record does not show that such is the case here or that the state law is in practice but a regulatory mechanism in restraint of price competition and thus obnoxious to our own constitutional limitations, rather than a means of serving the professed legislative policy of protection for the producer’s property in his trade-mark.
Perhaps the time has come for a legislative reassessment of the policy in the context of prevailing trade practices and concepts and the teachings of experience. There is not sufficient ground in the presentation here for denying the relief sought by plaintiff.
I concur in the result.
For modification — Chief Justice Vanderbilt and Justices Heher, Wacheneeld, Burling and Jacobs — 5.
Opposed — Hone.