Brown v. Banana Distributors of Connecticut
| Decision Date | 03 September 1943 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. 1025. |
| Parties | BROWN, Administrator, Office of Price Administration, v. BANANA DISTRIBUTORS OF CONNECTICUT, Inc., et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut |
J. Stephen Knight, Office of Price Administration, of Hartford, Conn., for plaintiff.
Willis G. Parsons and Gross, Hyde, & Williams, all of Hartford, Conn., and George J. Elbaum, of Boston, Mass., for defendants.
Defendants' motion to dismiss is founded upon two claims: First—that under the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 901 et seq., regulations concerning bananas are invalid unless approved by the Secretary of Agriculture.
This raises the question of the meaning of the term "any agricultural commodity" in Section 3(e) Title 1 of the Act, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 903(e). It is the contention of the Government that this language in the act was intended to refer only to agricultural commodities produced within the United States, and that bananas, being an imported commodity, were not intended to be covered by the act's requirement of prior approval by the Secretary of Agriculture of action with respect to any agricultural commodity. This interpretation has been followed by the Secretary of Agriculture, pursuant to Opinion No. 4434, dated August 22, 1942, by the Solicitor of the Department, as well as by the Office of Price Administration. A reading of Section 3(e) alone would give the meaning contended for by the defendants. However, in view of the fact that the provisions of the balance of Section 3 obviously refer to commodities produced in this country, although not in strict terms so limited, and in view of the fact that Subsection (e) was added in the Senate in an effort to give the Secretary of Agriculture control over prices received by the American farmer, I am constrained to agree with the construction contended for by the plaintiff and hold that prior approval by the Secretary of Agriculture is not necessary as a prerequisite to the validity of orders by the Price Administrator concerning the maximum prices of imported agricultural commodities under the Price Control Act of 1942.
The second ground for the motion to dismiss is the alleged failure of the complaint to set forth a cause of action because it depends upon the meaning of the phrase "tying agreement", which is either too vague or, if susceptible of definition, does not include the type of practice charged in the complaint.
The complaint charges a violation of Maximum Price Regulation 285, Section 1351.1258, prohibiting the evasion of the price limitations of the price regulation in connection with the sale...
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