Hale v. Hatch & North Coal Co.

• Decision Date: 14 April 1913
• Docket Number: 183.
• Citation: Hale v. Hatch & North Coal Co., 204 F. 433 (2nd Cir. 1913)
• Parties: HALE et al. v. HATCH & NORTH COAL CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

204 F. 433

HALE et al. v. HATCH & NORTH COAL CO. et al.

No. 183.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

April 14, 1913

Ralph M. Grant and Josiah H. Peck, both of Hartford, Conn., and James A. Marr, of Bridgeport, Conn., for plaintiffs in error.

Henry Stoddard, of New Haven, Conn., and Hyde, Joslyn, Gilman &amp Hungerford, J. Gilbert Calhoun, and John J. Dwyer, all of Hartford, Conn., for defendants in error.

Before LACOMBE, COXE, and WARD, Circuit Judges.

COXE Circuit Judge.

This action is brought under the Sherman law (Act July 2, 1890, c 647, 26 Stat. 210 (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3202)), the seventh section of which gives a private individual, whose business is injured by any of the acts forbidden by the law or declared unlawful thereby, the right to sue therefor and recover three-fold damages. The act declares contracts combinations and conspiracies in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states, illegal. It also provides that every person who shall monopolize or combine or conspire with any other person to monopolize interstate commerce, or make a contract or enter into a combination or conspire in restraint of trade, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. For several years after October, 1903, the plaintiff, Charles R. Hale, had been engaged, at Hartford, Conn., in buying and selling coal mined in states other than Connecticut. A large part of this coal was mined in Pennsylvania and was the subject of interstate commerce.

The defendants were coal dealers of Connecticut, having a place of meeting at Hartford where they frequently met. The plaintiff had built up an increasing business and had received a contract to supply the city with coal, for which he had underbid the other dealers. Soon thereafter he found it impossible to get coal from wholesale dealers, who not only refused to supply him, but in one instance, at least, canceled an order already accepted. Parties to the alleged conspiracy endeavored to persuade dealers outside of Hartford not to furnish him with coal. Other parties endeavored to persuade him to join the combination. The final result was that the plaintiff was forced into bankruptcy.

During the comparatively short period in which Hale had been engaged in buying and selling coal he succeeded in building up a flourishing and steadily increasing business until he was successful in procuring the contract with the city in competition with the defendants. Then his troubles began difficulty after difficulty confronted him, obstacle after obstacle was placed in his path; the result being, as before stated, failure and bankruptcy. We have, then, a successful and growing coal business destroyed. A large number of local dealers whose interests were hostile to those of Hale. ...