92 F. 479 | 6th Cir. | 1899
having stated the case as above, delivered the opinion of the court.
The first of the assignments of error relates to the admission in evidence of the contracts between other parties and the National Mercantile Company of a kind similar to that of the plaintiff with the latter company. But no grounds were stated- for the objection to their admission, and for that reason, according to the settled rule, error cannot be assigned upon the action of the court receiving them. 8 Enc. PI. & Prac. 168, and cases cited. It may not be improper, however, to say that no valid reason occurs to us on which the objection could have been based, seeing that those contracts were immediately connected with the contracts in suit, and, all taken together, constitute the entire transaction in which the parties were engaged. The same observation is applicable to contracts between Cravens and the defendant, the Carter-Orume Company, and the National Mercantile Company, which are copied in the preceding statement of facts. They are to be construed as one.
The second assignment relates to the following ruling of the court at the conclusion of the evidence to the jury:
“Now on the face of the papers themselves, I do not thinlc, and I so charge you, that the contracts — the three of them — are against public policy. But there is evidence tending to show that these contracts were a part of a combination or plan entered into between the manufacturers to the extent of eighty per cent, of the output of the country of wooden dishes, by which they each made a contract with a central company, who was to be the selling company, agreeing to sell all their output to that company at cost, taking shares in that company, and allowing that company to fix the market price for the disposition of the goods after they had been transferred to them for sale, and that these contracts were made for the purpose of maintaining prices, and that for the purpose of maintaining prices further they made contracts to limit the production of machines for the making of wooden dishes.”
The record proceeds to state: ‘Whereupon the counsel for plaintiff excepted to that part of the charge of the court touching the contracts as being against public policy.” In explanation, it is proper to say that the abovp ruling was given in charge to the jury in its preliminary instructions. The jury reported a disagreement. Whereupon the court gave them direct instructions to find for the defendant. The latter instruction superseded the former, and opens the whole case.
The third assignment is based upon the exception to the direction of the verdict in favor of the defendant. We cannot, of course, assume, and the court below could not, that any fact was established about which there was room for controversy. All questions of fact
The parties who were engaged in these transactions, of whom the plaintiff was one, representing 80 per cent, of the total product, undertook to, and did in fact, form a combination for the purpose of restricting the production of wooden dishes throughout the country and keeping up the prices thereof. The articles to which this combination had reference were articles in common use. The plaintiff’s contracts were part of the means employed for effecting the common object, and he secured the means of sharing in the profits expected to be gained through the combination. To this end all the factories were expected to he brought under the control of the National Mercantile Company, which was to- regulate the prices. The plaintiff testified that it was the purpose to close his factory, and not run it at all. He further testified that it was the purpose “to get all the factories in line,” in order “to maintain prices.” He was guarantied $9,000 for closing his factory for a year, and the contract included, all the dish machines that might come into his possession or control, thus disabling himself from manufacturing, and he obligated himself not to sell any wood dishes to any other person, directly or indirectly, during the continuance of the contract. It is manifest that it was the expectation, and that the parties intended, to get a sufficiently large number of manufacturers into the combination to practically accomplish, their purpose. We cannot doubt that süch a combination, for such purposes, was opposed to public policy, and therefore unlawful. It is the settled doctrine that one cannot maintain a suit in a court of justice upon a contract entered into for the purpose of promoting such objects. The doctrine was elaborately discussed, upon the principles of the common law, by Judge Taft in a case recently decided by this court. U. S. v. Addyston Pipe & Steel Co., 29 C. C. A. 141, 85 Fed. 271. In that case the question was also discussed whether the antitrust law of 1890 was applicable to the contract then under consideration. But the relation of that act to the common law was involved In the discussion, and much research was bestowed upon the established principles of the latter. The proposition there maintained
We think the court below was right in directing a verdict for the defendant. The judgment is affirmed, with costs.