Finley v. Music Corporation of America

• Decision Date: 24 June 1946
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 4328.
• Citation: 66 F. Supp. 569
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of California
• Parties: FINLEY et al. v. MUSIC CORPORATION OF AMERICA et al.

66 F. Supp. 569

FINLEY et al. v. MUSIC CORPORATION OF AMERICA et al.

Civ. No. 4328.

District Court, S. D. California, Central Division.

June 24, 1946.

Desser, Rau & Christensen, of Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiffs.

Frank P. Doherty, of Los Angeles, Cal., and Pacht, Pelton, Warne, Ross & Bernhard, of Beverly Hills, Cal., and Harold F. Collins, of Los Angeles, Cal., for defendants.

McCORMICK, District Judge.

Plaintiffs sue under Section 15, Title 15, United States Code Annotated, for damages, alleging injury to their business and property by reason of interstate activities of defendants violative of Sections 1 and 2 of the Antitrust Laws of the United States. Sections 1 and 2, Title 15 U.S.C.A.

The specific charges relate to a contract and combination between defendants and one Wayne Dailard to restrain and to monopolize interstate trade and commerce in the public entertainment field wherein so-called "name bands" are engaged and utilized in commercial ball rooms and dance halls.

The cause was tried to a jury. At the conclusion of an approximate ten days' trial a general verdict was rendered for the plaintiffs and against the defendants named above, wherein treble damages were awarded to the plaintiffs in the sum of $55,500. Subsequently, and pursuant to Section 15, supra, the court, after a hearing, allowed costs of suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee, in the aggregate sum of $9,092.85. Thereafter judgment was accordingly entered and docketed.

Defendants, pursuant to Rule 50, F.R. C.P., 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c, have filed and presented their motions for judgment in their favor notwithstanding the verdict of the jury, or, in the alternative, for a new trial. The court after considering the briefs of the respective parties entered herein a partial ruling wherein the court found that no cause had been shown which warranted or justified any disturbance of the findings and verdict of the jury save the possibility that under the rules enunciated by the Supreme Court in Keogh v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co., 1922, 260 U.S. 156, 43 S.Ct. 47, 67 L.Ed. 183, and reiterated in Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U.S. 439 at page 453, 65 S.Ct. 716, 89 L.Ed. 1051 and earlier established in Central Coal & Coke Co. et al. v. Hartman, 8 Cir., 1901, 111 F. 96, the jury's fixation of the damages for the injury to the plaintiffs by reason of defendants' wrongdoing does not conform to the yardstick of certainty required by the decisions of the courts of the United States.

Counsel for the parties have presented further arguments upon the reserved question. We are constrained by the weight of prevailing authority to conclude that even under the liberalized application by the Supreme Court of the rules pertaining to damages per se in actions relating to activities forbidden by the Antitrust laws, such as those found by the jury in this action, the evidence in the record before us falls short of the legally required certainty. Cf. Bigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures, 66 S.Ct. 574.

The record indicates that probably the jury's "expression in figures" of the treble damages at $55,500 is based upon evidence that in the year 1944 Wayne Dailard, the predecessor of the plaintiffs in the conduct and operation of the Mission Beach Amusement Center and ballroom, as stated in defendants' brief on the motions before us, showed a profit therefrom of approximately $74,000, and that 25% thereof was allocable to the ballroom. Such a deduction, however, is conjectural and based upon too insecure support under the record to sufficiently fix the damages to the plaintiffs so as to bring the award of the jury under the standard established by the decisions.

Having reviewed all of the evidence before the court on the issue of monetary damages, exclusive of other factors of injury to the plaintiffs, we believe it to be legally inadequate to support the jury's estimate of $18,500 actual damages. In reaching this conclusion we are not unmindful that there is a clear distinction between the rules prescribing pecuniary relief to "one injured in his business or property" according to the terms of Section 15 of Title 15 of the United States Code Annotated and that which is assessable in traditional or conventional actions for damages. Chattanooga Foundry & Pipe Works v. City of Atlanta, 203 U.S. 390, 27 S.Ct. 65, 51 L.Ed. 241.

At the argument on the reserved point ...