Connecticut Importing Co. v. Frankfort Distilleries, 103-108.
| Citation | 101 F.2d 79 |
| Decision Date | 09 January 1939 |
| Docket Number | No. 103-108.,103-108. |
| Parties | CONNECTICUT IMPORTING CO. v. FRANKFORT DISTILLERIES, Inc., et al. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit) |
Robert J. Woodruff and Arthur Klein, both of New Haven, Conn., David S. Day, of Bridgeport, Conn., and Charles G. Albon, of New Haven, Conn., for plaintiff.
Raymond E. Hackett and Mark W. Norman, both of Stamford, Conn., Henry J. Marks, and George H. Cohen, both of Hartford, Conn., and Herman M. Levy, of New Haven, Conn., for defendants.
Before L. HAND, SWAN, and CHASE, Circuit Judges.
The plaintiff has recovered a judgment for treble damages in a suit brought under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 15, and tried to a jury in the District Court for the District of Connecticut where the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff. The defendants have appealed and the plaintiff has also appealed on the ground that the verdict was restricted to the damages sustained up to the date the suit was brought.
The plaintiff was one of several distributors in the State of Connecticut for products manufactured by Frankfort Distilleries, Inc., one of the defendants; and the other defendants were also distributors of the same products in that state. The evidence was conflicting but there was enough to justify the jury in finding, as it did, that the defendants and others, including the plaintiff, formed a conspiracy in restraint of trade in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act by agreeing to maintain fixed prices in selling the products to retail dealers in Connecticut; that the plaintiff did not always conform to that agreement by maintaining such fixed prices; and that, after warnings that unless it did maintain those prices its supply of the products would be stopped, it continued to sell at cut prices and consequently Frankfort Distilleries, Inc., did refuse to supply it with its products; and that thereafter the defendants continued in the conspiracy. The plaintiff had been selling those products since sometime in December, 1933 under an agreement that it was to have the right to continue as a distributor so long as it took the required amount of them and paid for them promptly. Its supply was cut off on January 14, 1937 solely because of its under selling and it has since been unable to fill the orders of its customers for those products except to the extent of the stock it then had. This suit was brought February 10, 1937.
The judge charged the jury fairly and adequately as to what had to be proved by the plaintiff to show a conspiracy in restraint of trade under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to support a recovery under that statute and made it perfectly clear that the producer, in the absence of such an unlawful agreement, was not liable in this action merely because it refused to supply the plaintiff with its products after the plaintiff sold at cut prices; and as there was enough to take the case to the jury, the refusal to direct a verdict for the defendants was not erroneous.
The defendants assert further that the plaintiff cannot recover since, if there was an unlawful agreement, it was a party to it and so in pari delicto with them. The plaintiff has urged that such a defense is unavailable because not pleaded as required by the Connecticut procedure but we do not find it necessary to decide that. This cause of action did not arise in any event until Frankfort Distilleries, Inc., stopped supplying the plaintiff with its products and at that time whatever connection the...
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