Court Opinion

ID: 9445442
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:29:03.359508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:16.022347
License: Public Domain

POPE, Circuit Judge.
I dissent. It seems to me clear that the court has assumed a power which it does not have and has meddled in a decision which it is not authorized to make. In Federal Trade Commission v. Algoma Co., 291 U.S. 67, 73, 54 S.Ct. 315, 318, 78 L.Ed. 655, the Supreme Court described what has happened here in language which could not be more apt if it had been spoken concerning this very case. Said the Supreme Court: “ ‘The findings of the Commission as to facts, if supported by testimony, shall be conclusive.’ 15 U.S.C. § 45 (15 U.S.C.A. § 45). The Court of Appeals, though professing adherence to this mandate, honored it, we think, with lip service only. * * * In fact what the court did was to make its own appraisal of the testimony, picking and choosing for itself among uncertain and conflicting inferences. Statute and decision (Federal Trade Commission v. Pacific States Paper Trade Ass’n, 273 U.S. 52, 61, 63, 47 S.Ct. 255, 71 L.Ed. 534) forbid that exercise of power.” This is a clear case in which the majority of the court stepping into the shoes of the Commission, have undertaken to say how they would decide it. The clue to their fundamental error is to be found in the last sentence of the opinion’s footnote 1 where it is stated that the “real issue” is “Do the supports frequently give relief to those who complain of their feet?” I think it is demonstrable that this was not the issue before the Commission and that it is even less an issue before this court.
In its improper weighing of the evidence before the Commission, the court discloses that it is much impressed with the fact that a substantial number of witnesses testified that they did very frequently get a better platform to walk on with the addition of Sewell’s insert. The strong medical testimony which the Commission accepted amounted to a demonstration that if the petitioner’s device helped certain individuals it was because it happened to fit their particular foot trouble, but that generally speaking people with foot trouble must be prescribed for individually because of the many varieties of such trouble and the many things which cause them. The court says: “We do not think the doctors’ opinion and their few case histories of failures of the device overcome the proof of frequent successful use.”
But what the court thus assumes was the issue here and what it expressly said in footnote 1 was the issue, is not the issue at all. Indeed, the order of the *236Commission in subdivision 1(e) quoted in the opinion expressly allows as an exception advertisements claiming benefits “ ‘to the extent that respondents’ device may in instances reduce or relieve the discomfort associated with strained or tired feet.’ ” But as disclosed by the statement of facts in the majority opinion, it is not that kind of claim which is the subject of the Commission’s complaint. I refer now to the lists of advertising claims quoted in the opinion. There is no suggestion in any of these advertisements that the benefits claimed “may in instances” occur. There is no suggestion that there is, to use the majority’s language, “frequent successful use”. On the contrary, the assertions are to the effect that “now everyone can enjoy better posture”. The promises are universal and unqualified. Cuboids will help to balance “your” body weight;— they will help “you” enjoy increased foot health and comfox't. Everyone, without qualification, is promised better posture, better balance, better health. Those claims were not true.1 Certainly the Commission was justified by the record here in finding them to be false. In the language of the Supreme Court, the conclusions and findings of an administrative body are to be supported if they have “rational basis” and “warrant in the record”, Rochester Tel. Corp. v. United States, 307 U.S. 125, 59 S.Ct. 754, 764, 83 L.Ed. 1147. By no means can the conclusions of the Commission here be said to be irrational.2
This is no different than the case of a Ten Cent store advertising that it had a collection of all kinds of eye glasses suitable to fit every person with impaired eyesight and for the sum of $1.00 any such person could, after trying on these glasses, find a pair which would relieve him of eye strain and impaired vision. Even if hundreds of persons testified that they bought glasses that way and found them very helpful, yet a commission functioning like this one, could properly prohibit that sort of advertising, for it is rational to say that even if many found satisfaction in such glasses, it was nevertheless an unfair or deceptive practice to mislead people into thinking that anyone could safely wear such glasses and that they did not need to consult an expert.
The majority of the court appear much impressed with testimony that many people were pleased with the device. The Commission, more experienced in these matters, must have known, for it is common knowledge, that any charlatan may produce a multitude of testimonials supporting his claims. The issue here is not, as the court says, “Do the supports frequently give relief?”, it is, “Whether advertising the device as a cure-all is an unfair or deceptive act or practice?” The rule laid down in the Algoma case, supra, has been cited and applied by the Supreme Court in such a multitude of *237cases 3 that I may be permitted to express some astonishment that the majority should, without the citation of a single authority to sustain its action,4 wholly disregard this settled rule of limitation of this court’s authority in cases of this kind.
In American Air Lines, Inc., v. North American Air Lines, Inc., 351 U.S. 79, 76 S.Ct. 600, 603, decided at the last term, the Supreme Court was dealing with § 411 of the Civil Aeronautics Act, 49 U.S.C.A. § 491, which, like the Federal Trade Commission Act, prohibits “unfair or deceptive commercial practices and unfair methods of competition.” The court cited and applied its own rules as developed in the Federal Trade Commission decisions. Its language is precisely applicable here. It said, 351 U.S. at page 85, 76 S.Ct. at page 605: “Under § 411 it is the Board that speaks in the public interest. We do not sit to determine independently what is the public interest in matters of this kind, committed as they are to the judgment of the Board. We decide only whether, in determining what is the public interest, the Board has stayed within its jurisdiction and applied criteria appropriate to that determination.” With that standard for determining the function and jurisdiction of this court, this decision cannot stand.
The concurring opinion, instead of adding “clarity to our determination”, seems to me to travel even more wide of the mark. From some source outside the record we are furnished information about how some people use ankle supports, arch supports, metatarsal pads, and a variety of other named inserts; how others stretch shoes, heighten heels, add soles and half soles, and that “each of these operations may well affect balance”; some “may be used for style”, and high or low heels in women’s shoes “affect each of these factors”, (i. e., I suppose, both balance and style). Although disclaiming any such “expertise” as to permit me to affirm the assertions of my associates in this field, I do not question the existence of the named practices. Indeed, I have even heard of people wearing copper plates in their shoes to ward off arthritis.
Listing all these practices which shoe wearers may try for themselves might furnish a plausible reason why the Commission should not concern itself with as small a matter as cuboids, on the theory that if the public do not try cuboids, they will probably try something else.
But those are considerations not within our competence. The Commission has found the methods of advertising unfair and deceptive, and petitioner’s claims that “every one” will be helped by this cure-for-all are false. The finding has a rational basis and warrant in the record. It is not for us “to determine independently what is in the public interest.”

. It is immaterial that any intelligent person would know they must be false. “The fact that a false statement may be obviously false to those who are trained and experienced does not change its. character, nor take away its power to deceive others less experienced.” Federal Trade Commission v. Standard Education Society, 302 U.S. 112, 116, 58 S.Ct. 113, 115, 82 L.Ed. 141.

. Here the petitioner puts out a stereotyped foot cushion which undoubtedly works fine for many people. It would be fully rational for the Commission to think that any old piece of felt would work as well. The pretensions of the advertising with respect to “balance”, “poise”, “posture”, “position”, the Board could reasonably regard as misleading to prospective purchasers. The court’s assumption of superior knowledge that “often” the device makes shoes fit better and that “a better fitting shoe should result in better foot balance, some relief from aches and pains”, and that “even housewife’s drudgery ought to be lessened,” is wholly unwarranted. I think the court is without knowledge as to what percentage of users, if any, would find their shoes better fitting. But even if the court had superior expertise in the fitting of shoes, in aches and pains, and in housewives’ drudgery, making findings in this field is none of our business.

. “In a matter left specifically by Congress to the determination of an administrative body * * * the function of review placed upon the courts * * is fully performed when they determino that there has been a fair hearing * * * and an application of the statute in a just and reasoned manner.” Gray v. Powell, 314 U.S. 402, 411, 62 S.Ct. 326, 332, 86 L.Ed. 301.

. The only case cited in the opinion is Tractor Training Service v. Federal Trade Commission, 9 Cir., 227 F.2d 420. The only resemblance that case has to the present, one is that it was a Federal Trade Commission case. The court there sustained the Commission.