Court Opinion

ID: 9770940
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:25:51.487831+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:22.793749
License: Public Domain

Ed. F. McF addin, Justice, concurring. The majority limits the effect of its holding to § 6 of the Arkansas Fair Trade Act (Act 92 of 1937). That section is referred to as the “non-signer” section. I agree with what the majority has said about the invalidity of § 6 of the Act; but I go further and say the entire Act 92 of 1937 is unconstitutional, under the authority of our own case of Noble v. Davis, 204 Ark. 156, 161 S. W. 2d 189. In that case we were considering Act 432 of 1941, which authorized the State Board of Barber Examiners to fix the minimum price for barber services throughout the State. We held that Act to be unconstitutional, because it was a price fixing Act and violative of the Constitution. If the State Board of Barber Examiners cannot fix the minimum price of a haircut or a shave, then I cannot see how, by any stretch of the imagination, the Union Carbide Company should be allowed, by contract, to fix the price for which Prestone may be sold by its contract dealers in the State of Arkansas. So 1 think that Noble v. Davis disposes of the entire Act here at issue. In Gipson v. Morley, 217 Ark. 560, 233 S. W. 2d 79, the majority of this Court upheld Act 282 of 1949, which allowed for fixing the price for which liquor might be sold. I dissented in that case, because I have all the time maintained that price-fixing — whether on liquor, Prestone, shaves, haircuts, or any other article, service, or commodity — is violative of the Constitution. I anticipate that some day the holding in Gipson v. Morley will be overruled, and the holding in Noble v. Davis will be treated as our fundamental policy. The trend of decisions is in that direction.