Continental Wall Paper Co. v. Lewis Voight & Sons Co.

148 F. 939 | 6th Cir. | 1906

LURTON, Circuit Judge,

after making the foregoing statement of the case, delivered the opinion of the court.

It has been urged that the defense to the claim in suit must fail upon either, of two grounds: First, that the contract between the plaintiff corporation and the manufacturers of wall p^per does not contain any stipulations beyond those admissible and essential to protect the contracting parties in securing reasonable prices and against unreasonable and demoralizing competition; second, that if it be conceded that the agreement does constitute an unlawful combination in restraint of interstate trade and commerce, that that fact affords no defense to a suit for the price of goods sold and delivered to the defendant. These in their order.

As to the first point, it need only be said that the legality of the contract between the combining companies at common law, as imposing only a reasonable restraint upon the freedom of competition, is not a defense if the dominant purpose of the agreement and the direct result of its operation is to directly, and not incidentally, restrain freedom of commerce between the states or with foreign nations. Until the Supreme Court shall otherwise hold, we feel concluded by the meaning placed upon the act by United States v. Freight Association, 166 U. S. 290, 17 Sup. Ct. 640, 41 L. Ed. 1007; United States v. Joint Traffic Association, 171 U. S. 505, 19 Sup. Ct. 25, 43 L. Ed. 259; Chesapeake & O. Fuel Company v. United States, 115 Fed. 610, 53 C. C. A. 256; and not departed from in Northern Securities Company v. United States, 193 U. S. 197, 331, 24 Sup. Ct. 436, 48 L. Ed. 679. But we think the combination and agreement shown by Exhibit 1 comes within the prohibition of the act of Congress, whether that act be aimed only at unreasonable restraints or not. That contract and agreement is one between 98 per cent, of all the wall paper makers in the United States, who co-operate through a corporation organized by them for the single purpose of selling their gross product. That there shall be no competition between the combined companies is insured by the agreement that each manufacturer shall sell his entire product at an agreed price to the plaintiff corporation, which is to nominally make all sales, either directly or indirectly, at a uniform price, subject to an agreed scale of discounts, varying only according to an arbitrary classification of buyers. The difference between the price at which the so-called “vendors” sell to the plaintiff company and the price exacted from those who buy from it will be profit, and the profits will constitute the dividends to be distributed to plaintiff’s shareholders, and plaintiff’s shareholders are exclusively composed of the combining companies, called “vendors”; its comparatively insig-niiicant amount' of stock being placed with these vendors in proportion to the product of the year before the combine took effect. To prevent the enlargement of the product of any one of the vendors, it is provided, in effect, that there shall be no enlargement of plant, though new machinery may be used to replace old or that destroyed.

To insure a monopoly of the business to themselves, and keep strangers out of it, it is alleged, and not denied, that the only two manufacturers of wall paper machinery in the United States became parties to the combination by agreeing to sell no machinery to strangers, and to confine their sales to the combine. To add to the protective force of the tariff duties tending to keep out foreign products, it is also averred that an agreement was made with Canadian paper makers to protect each other against any cutting of prices. To insure against any-kicking out of the agreement or violations in any way, each member is required to indorse its shares in the Continental Wall Paper Company to that corporation, which is to hold and apply the same as liquidated damages in case of any breach. But that there should be no inducement to fly the contract, the scheme contemplated that every wholesale buyer should engage himself to buy his entire supply from the combine; and to secure the engagement of each such jobber or wholesaler to the scheme, no paper was to be sold to such as did not sign. This made the contract practically unbreakable, for if a factory should weary of the monopoly, it could find no jobbers or wholesalers free to buy its product, and it would be driven to rely upon such orders as it could get from retailers or consumers. That this union of former competitors — a union embracing substantially all of the wall paper mills in the land (for the 2 per cent, left out may be ignored as an active competition), should result in an unreasonable enhancement of prices is precisely what we might anticipate. Wall paper is a product of universal necessity, and the consumers are found in every household. Kvery principle of economic law instructs us that under such conditions there will be an enhancement of price, limited onlv by the unknown boundary of human greed and corporate avarice. It is therefore not to be doubted that the averment confessed by the pleading, that prices have been advanced 50 per cent., is substantially true. The conspiring mills were situated in many states. The consumers embraced the whole citizenship of the United States. The jobbers and wholesalers who were to be coerced into contracts to buy their entire demands from the Continental Wall Paper Company, or he driven out of business, were in every state.

Before the combination, each of the combining companies was engaged in both state and interstate commerce. The freedom of each, with respect to prices and terms, was restrained by the agreement and interstate commerce directly affected thereby, as well as by the enhancement of prices which resulted. A more complete monopoly in an article of universal use has probably never been brought about. It may be that the wit of man may yet devise a more complete scheme to accomplish the stifling of competition; but none of the shifts resorted to for suppressing freedom of commerce and securing undue prices, shown by the reported cases, is half so complete in its details. None of the schemes with which this may be compared is more certain in results, more widespread in its operation, and more evil in its purposes. It must fall within the definition of a “restraint of trade,” whether we confine ourselves to the common-law interpretation of that term, or apply that given to the term as used in the federal act by the cases we have cited above.

This brings us to the vital question in the case, which is the bearing of the fact that the plaintiff is but the corporate hand of an illegal combination under the antitrust law* of 1890 upon the liability of the defendants in this action for the price of wall paper bought from the illegal combine. The contention is that the contract upon which the action is brought is wholly collateral to any contract between the plaintiff and the other members of the illegal combination. But if the contract to pay for the goods included in the account sued upon is only part of an entire agreement, which includes stipulations which are illegal, the case of the plaintiff must fail. It is elementary law that the courts will not lend assistance in any way in carrying out an illegal agreement." McMullen v. Hoffman, 174 U. S. 639, 654, 19 Sup. Ct. 839, 43 L. Ed. 1117; Embrey v. Jemison, 131 U. S. 336, 348, 9 Sup. Ct. 776, 33 L. Ed. 172. Nor can a plaintiff show only such part of an entire agreement as is legal, and sue upon that alone. The whole must come. See cases just cited. If the combination had stopped with the agreement between the manufacturers and the plaintiff, by which the competition between the makers of wall paper had been obviated and a uniform sale price settled, this fact would have been no defense for the price of goods sold by the illegal combination to a stranger. If the defendants had been injured in their business by such an illegal method of enhancing prices, their only remedy would have been a direct action for damages, under section 7 of the anti-trust act (26 Stat. 210 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3202]). Montague & Co. v. Lowry, 193 U. S. 38, 24 Sup. Ct. 307, 48 L. Ed. 608; City of Atlanta v. Chattanooga Foundry & Pipe Works Co., 127 Fed. 23, 61 C. C. A. 387; and Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Company, 184 U. S. 540, 551, 552, 22 Sup. Ct. 431, 46 L. Ed. 679. If the illegal agreement in restraint of trade had included only a contract between the manufacturers themselves, the defendants and all other jobbers would at least have had the privilege of buying from whom they could best get that which they wanted, and the liberty of selling to whomsoever and at such prices as they saw fit. Competition between themselves in buying and selling would be free except in so far as the market was monopolized by the combine between manufacturers. But this might have resulted in conditions threatening to the permanency of the manufacturers’ monopoly by offering a strong inducement for strangers to enter the field with new plants, and to those within the fold to break away. These considerations doubtless led to such an extension of the agreement or combination, as to take in the jobbers and wholesalers. This was easy to do, for the threat to refuse to sell to such as would not come in would inevitably bring them to an agreement. And so the defense avers that the plan and agreement of the manufacturers, who organized the plaintiff as an instrumentality through which competition between themselves might be stifled, included the bringing into the combination all the jobbers and wholesalers in the United States by identical agreements with each such dealer and the plaintiff, whereby the contracting jobbers should agree to buy exclusively from the plaintiff or other members of the combine, and to sell only according to a schedule of prices and terms of credit dictated by the plaintiff. It is also averred and admitted by the demurrer that this purpose was carried out, and identical agreements obtained with all jobbers and wholesalers. The form of all such contracts with jobbers has been set out as Exhibit 2 in the statement of this case. Under threat that they must sign this jobbers’ agreement or be driven out of business, the defendants signed, and this is an action for goods sold upon the terms and prices settled by that contract. That contract provides, among other things, that the jobbers shall deal only with the plaintiff. The form in which this agreement is stated is to buy his demand up to a certain sum inserted by the plaintiff, and only the excess over that from other sources of supply. But that form of putting the agreement is but a shallow blind. The amount inserted to fill the blank is, as averred, always twice as much, or more, than the gross purchases of the preceding year. This leaves no probability of any demand over the sum inserted. With reference to the jobber’s liberty of sale, it is provided:

“Third. Attached hereto marked ‘B’ is a schedule of the road prices at which the company sells its goods for the term embraced in this contract to dealers other than jobbers, and also a statement of discounts allowed to such customers other than jobbers for quantity purchases, together with the terms of credit and freight allowance to which such customers are entitled. It is an essential condition of this agreement that the jobber will not directly or indirectly sell or offer for sale any of the merchandise purchased from the company hereunder at lower prices or upon better or more favorable terms than those shown in Schedule B; the intent hereof being to assure the company against the use by the jobbers of this agreement to undersell the company. The prompt performance by the jobber of the provisions of this agreement as to payment and otherwise is a condition precedent to exacting the continuous performance of said agreement by the company.”

Schedules A and B, referred to in the jobbers’ agreement, are Schedules B and C of the manufacturers’ agreement. But the essential entirety of agreement between the so-called vendors and the plain - tiff and that between the plaintiff and the defendants and all other jobbers, and the necessity the plaintiff is under to found its right of action upon the entire agreement, is illustrated by the company’s attitude as plaintiff. It does not make a roll of paper. The-mill-owners continued to operate their respective mills, and to take and fill orders after as before the combine. But by Exhibit 1 all Sale's to “jobbers” were to be in the name and on account of the plaintiff, and the price collected by the plaintiff. As the contract suggestively puts it, “the vendor shall have the right to select the jobbers through whom the goods manufactured by it are to be distributed, and to designate the amount of its goods such jobbers may buy,” Thus the petition or declaration in this case is upon an account which shows purchases by the defendants from many different members of the combine, and thé amount bought from each. But the plaintiff sues for the aggregate balance due upon the several purchases. This action it seeks to maintain, not upon any averment .of an: assignment by the several vendors to it, but as upon an account with it and not the vendors. These and other considerations lead us to the conclusion that the several agreements we have referred to constitute one whole, and that the general purpose and design and the undoubted result is to establish an illegal combination of manufacturers and wholesale dealers in restraint of trade — state and interstate.

NOTH. — Hollowing will be found the opinion of the court below, submitted on demurrer to the second, third, fourth, and fifth defenses of the answer: “The demurrer cannot be sustained to the second defense. The plaintiff is a corporation duly organized, and the transaction in question was between it and the defendant. If the transaction be lawful, then any cause of action arising out of it against thei defendant is vested in the plaintiff, and no one else can sue upon it. If it be unlawful, recovery will be denied, not because the plaintiff is not the real party in interest, but because the policy of the law will not permit a recovery. If there be a right of action at law, it is, upon the defendant’s own showing, vested in the i>laintiff. “In the third defense it is shown that the defendant for many years prior to the bringing of this suit was a jobber in buying and selling wall paper in Ohio and other states and territories of the United States; that certain persons, firms, and corporations, 36 in number, engaged in the manufacture of wall paper, their product being upwards of OS per cent, of all the wall paper manufactured and sold in the United States, conspiring to form a combination by which to limit the production of wall paper in the United States, and to enhance the prices thereof to jobbers, wholesalers, retailers, and consumers, and to restrain trade and commerce between the several states and territories of the United States and with foreign nations, ‘agreed with each other that, while said corporations and persons should retain ownership of their said plants and business, and preserve and continue their several identities, and operate said manufactories and businesses as before, the control of said businesses, and all matter relating to and affecting the production of said establishments and the price and sale of all wall paper manufactured thereby, should be under the control of a committee to be appointed by said several corporations and firms, each to have a voice in such appointment in proportion to the capacity of the several factories owned by them, respectively; that such committee should adopt rules and regulations governing the manner of conducting the business of said firms and corporations, the hours said factories owned by them should be operated, the patterns of wall paper to be manufactured by them, the times when samples of the goods to be manufactured for the ensuing season should be submitted to a pricing committee appointed by said committee, to enable it to classify and fix the list prices thereof, to fix and determine list prices, discounts, terms of sale, equalization of freight rates, and all other matters affecting the production and regulation of prices, and the classification of the dealers in wall paper in the United States, and the prices at which wall paper should be sold to and by such several classes, and the division of the profits arising arnowg said corporations and firms, not in proportion to their production and sales, but in proportion to their capacity; and. further, that, to secure the faithful performance by each of said persons and corporations of the provisions of said trust agreement, they should each pay a sum into a common pool, in proportion to the capacity of their respective manu-factories, which said sum should be forfeited by any of said manufacturers who should break said agreement, compete with the other parties to said agreement, or sell at other or1 different prices than those to be fixed by said committee.’ And to defeat and evade the law it was further agreed that: ‘For the more effectual carrying out of said scheme, a corporation should be ostensibly formed under the laws of the state of New York, to be called the “Continental Wall Paper Company,” being the plaintiff herein, with a capital stock of $200,000, to be divided into 16,000 shares of the par value of $12.50 each, said stock to be divided among said corporations and firms in proportion to the number of rolls of paper manufactured by them in the year preceding said month of July, A. D. 1898.’ That seven directors of said Continental Wall Paper Company should be selected by the members of the combination. ’That said corporations and firms each and the Continental Wall Paper Company should sign a printed contract, a copy of which is attached to the answer as Exhibit 1, in which the manufacturer is designated as the vendor and the plaintiff as the company, and which provides, among other things, in substance, that the company shall act as selling agent in handling the entire product of the vendor at the prices set forth in Schedules A, B, and C of Exhibit 1. That there shall be no enlargement of the manufacturing facilities of .the vendor, hut that new machinery may be substituted for old which may become useless. It also provides for the classification of the purchasers of wall paper. And it was further agreed that the Continental Wall Paper Company should require all dealers In wall paper, whether jobbers or wholesalers, to sign an agreement, a copy of which is attached to the answer as Exhibit 2, which, among other things, provides: ‘First. That the company will sell, subject to such limitations as it may impose, and the jobber will purchase, the entire requirements of the jobber in his business of selling wall paper for the business year ending July 1, 1899, to the amount of a gross valuation, without discounts, of-, the jobber reserving to himself the right to purchase such merchandise as he may need in excess of -- from others. * * * Second. The jobber shall be allowed discounts at the rate shown in the accompanying schedule, marked “A,” which is hereby imbodied in this agreement as a part thereof. Third. Attached hereto marked “B” is a schedule of the road prices at which the company sells its goods for the term embraced in this contract to dealers other than jobbers, and also a statement of discounts allowed to such customers other than jobbers for quantity purchases, together with the terms of credit and freight allowance to which such customers are entitled. It is an essential Condition of this agreement that the jobber will not, directly or indirectly, sell or offer for sale any of the merchandise purchased from the company hereunder at lower prices or upon better or more favorable terms than those shown in' Schedule B the intent hereof being to assure the company against the use by the jobber of this agreement to undersell the company.’ And in the event of the refusal of any wholesaler to sign such agreement, no paper should be sold to him, and he should be driven out of business. It is further shown that ‘to conceal the fact that it (Exhibit No. 2) was an agreement to purchase from no one but said company and the members of said combination and trust, the amount of purchases made by the buyer in the previous year from all the members of said combination and trust, being the entire amount of purchases made by such buyer during the preceding year, was ascertained, and an amount at least double thereof, being an amount supposed to be, and which was in fact, more than, by any possibility, could be needed by such buyer, was inserted in said blanks ás the amount to be purchased by such buyer from the company.’ And it is further shown that ‘at the time of the formation of said combination and trust John Waldron & Son and the Kaukauna Machine Company were the only manufacturers in the United States or wall paper manufacturing machinery in the United States, having their factories, one in New Brunswick, N. J.,. and the other in Kaukauna, Wis., and were engaged in manufacturing wall paper machinery in said states. * * * In further carrying out of said combination and trust, * * * agreements were made between said manufacturers of machinery and said plaintiff, by which, for a certain consideration, said manufacturers of machinery agreed, during the existence of plaintiff, to sell wall paper manufacturing machinery only to it and the members of said combination, and not to any new mills desiring to start.’ And it is further shown that ‘the members. of said combination and trust, the said plaintiff, further to carry out said agreement, compelled all the other wholesale and quantity buyers to sign agreements, in the form attached to this answer, marked “Exhibit 3,” the same being a printed form with blanks for signatures, and having attached thereto the prices shown as Schedule C, attached to Exhibit 1, which are the list prices referred to in said agreement.’ And it is further shown that the combination had the power and the will to prevent the defendant from obtaining wall paper for its trade, and to drive it out of business, and that, by reason thereof, it was compelled to, and did, sign the agreement attached to the answer as Exhibit 2, and in carrying out said scheme and combination did purchase from the plaintiff, and the plaintiff did deliver to the defendant, ‘in the year from September, 1898, to September, 1899, wall paper, for which this defendant paid to said plaintiff for and per direction of the members of said combination the sum of $144,854.14,’ as shown by the statement of account attached to the petition. That the prices charged in the exhibit attached to the amended petition are the prices fixed and determined in pux--suance of and by the combination or trust agreement, and at least one-hall' more than they would otherwise have been, and that the'wall paper was purchased by the defendant and delivered by the plaintiff in pursuance of said combination or trust agreement, and that this suit is an attempt to enforce and recover the prices so fixed by said combination.

The jobbers who have signed the particular contract essential to secure their co-operation are, in a sense, victims, for they have been coerced into agreement. Nevertheless, they are also members of the illegal combination, and active participants in the scheme for the illegal enhancement of prices, the stifling of competition, and the restraint of freedom of trade and commerce. The jobbers do not share in the benefits which result to the manufacturers from the stifling of competition between themselves and the enhancement of prices thereby resulting. By that the jobbers are victimized. But the jobbers do share in the benefits growing out of the destruction of competition in prices as between themselves. The enhanced prices which they paj-are exacted again from retailers. The consumer, at last, is the only real victim. It is the consumer who makes up the public, which it is the object of the law to protect against undue exactions through illegal combinations in restraint of freedom of commerce and fair play in commercial transactions.

The defense which we sustain here is not for the sake of William Voight & Sons. The averment that they paid 50 per cent, more for their gross purchases in consequence of the illegal combination has little merit in it, moral or otherwise. They doubtless sold again at the great minimum profit they agreed to exact from retailers, and the retailers later exacted the undue profit from the consuming public. There, at last, like all burdens, it must rest. The defense here sustained is good only because it is only possible to protect the public by refusing all assistance in carrying out an illegal agreement.

This is the policy of our law, and to maintain this policy the judgment of the Circuit Court must be affirmed.

“In short, this defense shows a combination of manufacturers of wall paper, of manufacturers of wall paper machinery, and of jobbers and wholesalers of wall paper, with power to control the production and sale of all wall paper .machinery and 98 per cent, of all wall paper manufactured in the United States, and that in the exercise of this power it limited production, prevented competition, fixed and enhanced the prices of wall paper, and compelled the jobbers and wholesalers throughout the United States to buy and sell to retailers and consumers at the prices so fixed, and that this action is founded on an account for wall paper sold to the defendant as one of the members of the combination, by the plaintiff as the agent and trustee of the combination, at the prices so fixed by the combination, and in furtherance of the purposes of its organisation.- Assuming, for the purpose of the demurrer, that the allegations of this defense are true, it follows that the combination was illegal and unlawful, within the meaning of the ánti-trust laws of Ohio and of the United States. The present case differs from the Connolly Case, 184 TJ. S. 540-549, 22 Sup. Ct. 431, 46 I/. Ed. 679, in this: that the purchases by the defendant had direct and necessary connection with the iliegal combination. The defendant was not an outsider, purchasing goods of the plaintiff in the usual and ordinary course of buisness, but a member of the combination, who purchased the goods from the combination through its representative and agent, upon the terms prescribed by the combination, and in furtherance of its purposes. The demurrer to this defense, therefore, is not well taken, and will be overruled. “Under the fourth and fifth defenses, the defendant seeks to recover by way of cross-petition under the anti-trust laws of Ohio and of the United States, as damages, double and treble the moneys paid by it to the plaintiff for wall paper, as shown by the exhibits attached to the petition and the amendment thereto. The demurrer to these defenses is well taken, and will be sustained. It is not admitted in these defenses that the defendant was a party to the illegal combination, but the defendant is bound by the admission of the third defense. It will not be permitted to admit for the purposes of the third defense, and deny for the purpose of the fourth and fifth defenses, a fact pertinent to the transaction under investigation.”