Court Opinion

ID: 9857031
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 07:12:56.869738+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:54.444264
License: Public Domain

ME. JUSTICE BOTTOMLY
dissenting:
I cannot agree with the disposition of this case, as set forth in the majority opinion.
From the facts in this record, it appears that good, hardworking citizens, who were attempting to meet the high cost of milk for their children, formed under a contract, a self-owned and serving place for the processing of the milk from their own herd of milch cows. A little diplomacy exercised by the representatives of the Milk Control Board and the county and state officials would have, without doubt, corrected any errors, if any.
Instead, the defendants were hounded by the prosecuting attorney, and on the trial were unmercifully browbeaten. This is one of the most unfair, unjust and immoral proceedings and trials that has been brought to my attention in almost fifty years in the law:
First of all, this Milk Control Board Act of 1939, enacted as Chapter 204, Laws of 1939, and as amended, was one of several “war measures” passed about the time of the “Blue Eagle”, all for the purpose of temporarily steadying and stabilizing industries and the prices of commodities. In this particular industry of milk, the owners of dairy herds were losing money because hardly anyone had the money to buy, people by the thousands were going to shipyards, to war industries, into service, etc., herds were being sold, and without these restrictive measures milk would have been practically unobtainable. So, pioneering individualism and private enterprise was ditched for the sheltering protection of the State and Federal laws.
"When the war was over, however, such fair trade laws were carried on as a form of subsidy to the industry as agriculture’s parity is carried on.
For the reasons stated, and the shameful conduct of the prose*267cntion, I would reverse the judgments and order the record in the district court stricken.