Federal Base Ball Club of Baltimore v. National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs

• Decision Date: 29 May 1922
• Docket Number: No. 204,204
• Citation: Federal Base Ball Club of Baltimore v. National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, 259 U.S. 200, 42 S.Ct. 465, 66 L.Ed. 898, 26 A.L.R. 357 (1922)
• Parties: FEDERAL BASE BALL CLUB OF BALTIMORE, Inc., v. NATIONAL LEAGUE OF PROFESSIONAL BASE BALL CLUBS et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

259 U.S. 200

42 S.Ct. 465

66 L.Ed. 898

FEDERAL BASE BALL CLUB OF BALTIMORE, Inc.,

v NATIONAL LEAGUE OF PROFESSIONAL BASE BALL CLUBS et al.

No. 204.

Argued April 19, 1922.

Decided May 29, 1922.

Messrs. Charles A. Douglas, of Washington, D. C., Wm. L. Marbury, of Baltimore, Md., and William L. Rawls, Hugh H. Obear, Jo. V. Morgan, and Charles S. Douglas, all of Washington, D. C., and L. Edwin Goldman, of Baltimore, Md., for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 201-205 intentionally omitted] Messrs. George Wharton Pepper, of Philadelphia, Pa., and Benjamin S. Minor, of Washington, D. C., for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a suit for threefold damages brought by the plaintiff in error under the Anti-Trust Acts of July 2, 1890, c. 647, § 7, 26 Stat. 209, 210 (Comp. St. § 8829), and of October 15, 1914, c. 323, § 4, 38 Stat. 730, 731 (Comp. St. § 8835d). The defendants are the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs and the American League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, unincorporated associations, composed respectively of groups of eight incorporated base ball clubs, joined as defendants; the presidents of the two Leagues and a third person, constituting what is known as the National Commission, having considerable powers in carrying out an agreement between the two Leagues; and three other persons having powers in the Federal League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, the relation of which to this case will be explained. It is alleged that these defendants conspired to monopolize the base ball business, the means adopted being set forth with a detail which, in the view that we take, it is unnecessary to repeat.

The plaintiff is a base ball club incorporated in Maryland, and with seven other corporations was a member of the Federal League of Professional Base Ball Players, a corporation under the laws of Indiana, that attempted to compete with the combined defendants. It alleges that the defendants destroyed the Federal League by buying up some of the constituent clubs and in one way or another inducing all those clubs except the plaintiff to leave their League, and that the three persons connected with the Federal League and named as defendants, one of them being the President of the League, took part in the conspiracy. Great damage to the plaintiff is alleged. The plaintiff obtained a verdict for $80,000 in the Supreme Court and a judgment for treble the amount was entered, but the Court of Appeals, after an elaborate discussion, held that the defendants were not within the Sherman Act. The appellee, the plaintiff, elected to stand on the record in order to bring the case to this Court at once, and thereupon judgment was ordered for the defendants. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs v. Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, 269 Fed. 681, 688, 50 App. D. C. 165. It is not argued that the plaintiff waived any rights by its course....