Court Opinion

ID: 9423051
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:05:46.428694+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:41.951504
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
whom Mr. Justice Harlan joins,
dissenting.
That part of the Commission’s order enjoining the petitioners from engaging in “coercive conduct” designed to compel Atlantic dealers to handle Atlantic-sponsored tires, batteries,. and accessories is clearly correct. There is ample evidence that Atlantic coerced its dealers into the exclusive handling of the sponsored goods by threatening the cancellation of dealer franchises. Not only was there direct evidence of the making of such threats; the nearly universal shift to Goodyear’s products, coming shortly after the dealers expressed their preference for competing brands, would itself indicate that the change was wrought by something more than simple persuasion. On the basis of this evidence, the Commission reasonably concluded that Atlantic had imposed on its dealers an arrangement *378whereby continued maintenance of their relationship with Atlantic depended upon their handling the sponsored products, despite the absence of contractual terms to this effect and Atlantic’s protests that its “official” policy was one of free choice.
But granting that the Commission validly found that the petitioners had engaged in coercive practices amounting to a violation of § 5 of the Act does not lead me to conclude that its order enjoining the use of any sales-commission plan of distribution is supportable. In essence, the sales-commission agreement between Atlantic and Goodyear provided Atlantic with a commission on all sales made by Goodyear to the Atlantic dealers in exchange for Atlantic’s sponsorship of the Goodyear products. The responsibility for making the sales and deliveries was Goodyear’s, though Atlantic undertook to engage in various activities in support of the Goodyear sales effort. This method of distribution was adopted by Atlantic to replace a purchase-resale plan which it had previously employed and found unsatisfactory. Under the purchase-resale plan, Atlantic purchased the tires, batteries, and accessories, warehoused them, and sold them to its dealers. The principal advantage accruing to Atlantic from adoption of the sales-commission plan was that it enabled Atlantic to dispense with maintaining its own storage and distribution facilities. Under both systems, Atlantic had a financial interest in the sale of the sponsored products and, for all that appears, the same incentive to maximize its dealers’ purchases of them.
There is no reason to assume that the sales-commission plan of distribution gave to Atlantic any distinctive capacity to effect the arrangement which is the gravamen of the violation proved. The core of that violation is Atlantic’s coercion of its dealers into handling only sponsored products by threatening to cancel their franchises and indulging in a variety of related coercive practices, thereby *379raising substantial barriers to competition in that segment of the market for tires, batteries, and accessories represented by its dealers. This it could have done as easily under the sales-commission plan, the purchase-resale plan, or any plan of distribution which gave it a financial interest in the sale of any particular line of tires, batteries, and accessories.
Indeed the Commission itself recognized that whatever power Atlantic may have over its dealers does not derive from this particular means of distribution:
“Atlantic has sufficient economic power with respect to its wholesale and retail petroleum distributors to cause them to purchase substantial quantities of sponsored TBA even without the use of overt coercive tactics or of written or oral tying agreements, and this power is a fact existing independently of the particular method of distributing or sponsoring TBA used by Atlantic.” *
Therefore, to the extent that the Commission’s order is based on the premise that the sales-commission plan confers upon Atlantic some distinctive capacity to coerce its dealers into handling sponsored products, and thereby exclude competing suppliers, it is without foundation. Insofar as this exclusion resulted from threats of franchise cancellation and related coercive tactics, that part of the order directed at these practices will afford the necessary relief.
The Commission’s order need not be justified on a showing that the plan confers any distinctive capacity for coercion upon Atlantic, however, if it can be demonstrated that the plan is merely one variant of a broader category of activity which could be prohibited under § 5. It would be less than candid to deny that aggressive salesmanship by Atlantic representatives is apt to meet with more than *380ordinary success when directed at Atlantic dealers, even though the most scrupulous obedience is accorded to the Commission's order prohibiting coercion. Given the disparity of financial resources and the natural desire of the dealers to maintain a cordial relationship with Atlantic, some competitive advantage will necessarily accrue to Atlantic’s sponsorship of a particular line of tires, batteries, and accessories under any plan of distribution. This advantage is the inevitable result of the market structure in which Atlantic and its dealers find themselves, and has nothing to do with the particular method which Atlantic might use to market a line of products. The disparity in size and financial strength, the short term of the prevailing leases, the dire financial consequences attendant upon lease cancellation, and the established market preference for certain brands of gasoline — all contribute to give Atlantic a leverage over its dealers and a corresponding power to effect some exclusion of competition.
The Commission’s order can thus be understood as a measure to prevent such exclusion by taking a step toward the total exclusion of Atlantic from the marketing of tires, batteries, and accessories. Indeed, once it is conceded that the sales-commission plan makes no distinctive contribution to Atlantic’s coercive capacity, this would seem the only conceivable justification for the Commission’s order. This justification, however, is without foundation in law, for it assumes that § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which proscribes unfair methods of competition, prohibits the marketing of complementary goods by a manufacturer or processor enjoying some undefined measure of economic leverage vis-á-vis his distributors. So long as the manufacturer does enjoy some such leverage, his marketing of complementary goods through an established system of distributorships will tend to effect some exclusion of competition, whether those goods be *381distributed by another through a sales-commission plan, or purchased and resold by the manufacturer, or indeed manufactured and sold by him.
I cannot believe that § 5 was intended to allow the Commission to block the expansion of an enterprise into the marketing of such complementary items. Section 5 prohibits unfair methods of competition. The coercive practices enjoined by paragraphs five and six of the order apart, no unfairness is claimed in any of the practices employed by Atlantic. All concede that the continuing exclusionary pressure, to the extent it exists, derives from the imbalance of economic power between the two parties, rather than from any unfair feature of the sales-commission plan. To use an unfair practice charge to punish an enterprise for consequences inevitably flowing from its position in the structure of commerce is a grave distortion of the statute, imposing a massive and unjustifiable restraint on entrepreneurial action. Henceforth, large concerns marketing their products through smaller distributors stand vulnerable to the charge that their methods of competition are unfair because they have done no more than add a complementary product to those already sold through their distributors. I can find no warrant for this position in the words of the statute, in the economic policy it reflects, or in any of the cases decided under it.
In short, there is no justification whatever for that part of the Commission’s order which prohibits the petitioners from employing the sales-commission plan of distribution. An order based on the premise that the Commission could enjoin Atlantic from any marketing at all of tires, batteries, and accessories is without foundation in the statute; an order based on the premise that the plan confers on Atlantic some distinctive capacity for coercion is without foundation in fact. Baseless in fact and in law, this order inflicts significant and undeserved damage upon Atlantic. Unjustifiable Commission orders imposing such *382damage on corporate enterprise, and ultimately on the public, cannot be sanctioned by invocation of abstractions regarding the deference properly owed expert tribunals in devising remedial measures. It is to avoid just such errors as inhere in this order that the power of judicial review was granted to the courts — errors which, serving no public purpose, impose senseless damage on the private sector of our economy.
For these reasons I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals approving the Commission’s prohibition of the use of the sales-commission plan by Atlantic. I think the Commission’s order as to Goodyear should likewise have been set aside by the Court of Appeals. That order is not only riven with the same defects, but in addition prohibits Goodyear from entering into sales-commission agreements with oil companies which, so far as we know, have never practiced the coercive techniques used by Atlantic, and which are not in a position to exercise any leverage at all over their dealers.

58 F. T. C. 309, at 364-365.