Court Opinion

ID: 9457364
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:20:03.215019+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:19.632264
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
Before FRIENDLY, Chief Judge, and LUMBARD and KAUFMAN, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Appellant Daly-Herring Co. having petitioned the court for a rehearing of its decision of April 29, 1971, and an answer having been received from Appellee Uniroyal, Inc., and Appellee Uniroyal, Inc., having also petitioned for a rehearing and an answer having been received from Appellant Louisville Chemical Co.,
It is ordered that both petitions for rehearing be and they hereby are denied.
Daly-Herring argues in its petition for rehearing that we did not deal in our opinion with the fact that it, as well as Louisville Chemical, urged on appeal that it was entitled to recover treble damages on the ground stated in footnote 5 of our opinion with respect to Louisville— that is, that
“it suffered damages as a direct result of the per se illegal restraints on resale trade in MH-30 imposed by Uniroyal and substantially adhered to by its authorized distributors during the four-year period immediately prior to suit, each time it purchased or unsuccessfully sought to purchase MH-30 within that period.”
Because we granted treble damages to Louisville on other grounds, we did not pass on the merits of this question. Therefore, Daly-Herring now contends, we have not completely disposed of its appeal.
We recognize that we have omitted any discussion of Daly-Herring’s argument in this regard. As stated in its petition for rehearing, that argument has two parts:
“Each time it sought to purchase MH-30, it found that it could not do so because of Uniroyal’s specific prohibition against sub-distribution, or it found that to the extent it could purchase MH-30, it could not resell at a profit because prices at all levels of trade were fixed by Uniroyal [and thus Daly-Herring] had to pay higher prices therefor during the period it was an unauthorized distributor.”
In order to prove the first part of this argument — that Daly-Herring could not buy all the MH-30 it needed *886after its termination, because of Uniroyal’s unlawful scheme — Daly-Herring offered at trial the testimony of its president and sales manager, who swore that after the termination by Uniroyal it was unable to obtain MH-30 from certain other distributors. Contrary to Uniroyal’s contention in answering Daly-Her-ring’s petition for rehearing, the district judge did not reject this contention; indeed, he made no ruling on the question whatsoever. Nevertheless, we believe that Daly-Herring’s evidence was adequately refuted by the testimony and records of such other distributors revealing substantial sales of MH-30 by them to Daly-Herring after its termination or, in some cases, that they would have been willing to sell MH-30 to it but were never asked. Moreover, no distributor testified that Uniroyal had actually required or asked him not to sell MH-30 to Daly-Herring, and no one testified that he had turned down an order from Daly-Herring. Hence, whether or not Daly-Herring would be entitled to threefold recovery if it could prove that Uniroyal's illegal scheme prevented it from obtaining MH-30, we do not believe that Daly-Herring proved its case by a preponderance of the evidence.
As to the second part of DalyHerring’s argument — that to the extent that it could obtain MH-30, it had to pay more for the product because of Uniroyal’s price-fixing conspiracy than it would have in an unrestrained market — DalyHerring cites us to no place in the record where it made that contention below and the district court did not treat it. We are thus led to believe that Daly-Herring did not raise this issue until its appeal, and in such a situation it is clear both that the claim was not proven at trial and that it cannot be raised for the first time in this Court. Schwartz v. S.S. Nassau, 345 F.2d 465, 466 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 382 U.S. 919, 86 S.Ct. 294, 15 L.Ed.2d 234 (1965).
For these reasons, we deny Daly-Her-ring’s petition for rehearing.