338 U.S. 338 (1949), 22, United States v. Yellow Cab Co.

• Citation: 338 U.S. 338, 70 S.Ct. 177, 94 L.Ed. 150
• Party Name: United States v. Yellow Cab Co.
• Case Date: December 05, 1949
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

Page 338

338 U.S. 338 (1949)

70 S.Ct. 177, 94 L.Ed. 150

United States

v.

Yellow Cab Co.

No. 22

United States Supreme Court

Dec. 5, 1949

Argued November 14-15, 1949

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

Syllabus

In a suit to restrain violations of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act through a conspiracy to restrain and monopolize the sale of taxicabs by control of the principal companies operating them in certain states, the trial court carefully weighed the evidence, found it insufficient to support the allegations of the complaint, and entered judgment for defendants.

Held: judgment affirmed. Pp. 339-342.

(a) For triers of fact totally to reject an opposed view impeaches neither their impartiality nor the propriety of their conclusions. Labor Board v. Pittsburgh Steamship Co., 337 U.S. 656. P. 341.

(b) Rule 52, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, applies to appeals by the Government as well as to those by other litigants. Pp. 341-342.

(c) Where the evidence would support a conclusion either way, and the trial court has decided it to weigh more heavily for the defendants, such a choice between two permissible views of the weight of the evidence is not "clearly erroneous" within the meaning of Rule 52. P. 342.

80 F.Supp. 936, affirmed.

In a suit to enjoin alleged violations of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, the District Court found that the evidence did not support the allegations of the complaint, and entered judgment for defendants. 80 F.Supp. 936. On appeal to this Court, affirmed, p. 342.

Page 339

JACKSON, J., lead opinion

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON delivered the opinion of the Court.

This suit in equity, under §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1 and 2, originally included three charges of violation: (1) conspiracy to restrain and monopolize transportation of interstate travelers by taxicab between Chicago railroad stations and their homes, offices, and hotels; (2) conspiracy to eliminate competition for the business of transporting passengers between different Chicago railroad stations, and (3) conspiracy to restrain and monopolize the sale of taxicabs by control of the principal companies operating them in Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh, and Minneapolis. On a previous appeal, this Court held the first of the charges not to state a case within the statute, and that charge no longer concerns us. United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 332 U.S. 218. The court below found that the Government failed to prove the second charge, and no appeal is taken from that part of the judgment, so that charge has been eliminated. We have held that the residue of the complaint, embodying the third charge, alleges a cause of action within the statute, but only on the expressed assumption that the facts alleged are true, United States v. Yellow Cab Company, supra, at 224, but the trial court has found that the Government, at the trial, has failed on all the evidence to prove its case. 80 F.Supp. 936. The cause is before us by a direct appeal under the Expediting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 29, and not by an exercise of our discretionary jurisdiction.

The first question proposed by the Government is whether the evidence sustains the findings of fact by the District Court. This is the basic issue, and the Government raises no question of law that has an existence independent of it. This issue of fact does not arise upon the trial court's disregard or misunderstanding of some definite

Page 340

and well established fact. It extends to almost every detail of the decision, the Government saying that the trial court "ignored . . . substantially all of the facts which the Government deemed significant."

What the Government asks, in effect, is that we try the case de novo on the record, reject nearly all of the findings of the trial court, and substitute contrary findings of our own. Specifications of error which are fundamental to its case ask us to reweigh the evidence and review findings that are almost entirely concerned with imponderables, such as the intent of parties to certain 1929 business transactions, whether corporate officers were then acting in personal or official capacities, what was the design and purpose and intent of those who carried out twenty-year-old transactions, and whether they had legitimate business motives, or were intending to restrain trade of their competitors in car manufacture, such as General Motors, Ford, Chrysler and Packard.

These were the chief fact issues in a trial of three weeks' duration. The government relied in large part on inferences from its 485 exhibits, introduced by nine witnesses. The defendants relied heavily on oral testimony to contradict those inferences. The record is before us in 1,674 closely printed pages.

The Government suggests that the opinion of the trial court

seems to reflect uncritical acceptance of defendants' evidence and of defendants' views as to the facts to be given consideration in passing upon the legal issues...