Helena Automobile Dealers Ass'n v. Anderson

• Decision Date: 23 January 1940
• Docket Number: 7953.
• Citation: 98 P.2d 371,110 Mont. 1
• Parties: HELENA AUTOMOBILE DEALERS ASS'N v. ANDERSON et al. (STATE ex rel. McQUITTY, State Purchasing Agent, Intervener).
• Court: Montana Supreme Court

98 P.2d 371

110 Mont. 1

HELENA AUTOMOBILE DEALERS ASS'N v. ANDERSON et al. (STATE ex rel. McQUITTY, State Purchasing Agent, Intervener).

No. 7953.

Supreme Court of Montana

January 23, 1940

Appeal from District Court, Lewis and Clark County; A. J. Horsky Judge.

Action by the Helena Automobile Dealers Association, a voluntary trade association, against Ernest Anderson, Jr., doing business as the Anderson Motor Company, the Capital Motors Incorporated, and the International Harvester Company, to enjoin defendants from violating provisions of the Unfair Practices Act, wherein the State of Montana, on the relation of I. S. McQuitty, State Purchasing Agent, intervened. From judgment sustaining demurrer to complaint, the plaintiff appeals.

Reversed and remanded.

Toomey McFarland & Chapman of Helena, for appellant.

Harrison J. Freebourn, Atty. Gen., Mark Derr, Asst. Atty. Gen., Speer & Hoffman, of Great Falls, and Smith, Smith & Smith, of Helena, for respondents.

ANGSTMAN Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment in an action seeking to enjoin the defendants from violating the provisions of Chapter 80 of the Laws of 1937, commonly known as the "Unfair Practices Act."

The lower court sustained a demurrer to the plaintiff's complaint interposed by defendant International Harvester Company, and overruled the plaintiff's demurrer to the answers interposed by the other defendants and to the complaint in intervention filed by the state. The plaintiff elected to stand on the complaint and appealed from the judgment rendered against it dismissing the action.

The complaint alleges a violation by defendants of Chapter 80, Laws of 1937, by selling automobiles to the state of Montana at a price below the minimum fixed by that chapter. The constitutionality of the Act has already been determined. Associated Merchants of Montana v. Ormesher, 107 Mont. 530, 86 P.2d 1031.

Defendants contend, and the court found, that the sale of merchandise to the state of Montana is excepted from the provisions of the Act. The correctness of that conclusion determines the propriety of the judgment appealed from. The Act itself deals solely with sellers and imposes no restrictions, qualifications or penalties upon buyers. The state of Montana is not mentioned in the Act, and sales to it are thus not expressly exempted; nor does the Act in anywise define the term "buyer." It simply denounces sales made below cost when the purpose is to injure competitors or to destroy competition. The cost is to be determined according to a certain formula fixed in the Act.

We are called upon to determine whether it was the legislative intent to exempt sales made to the state of Montana from the provisions of the Act. Defendants contend that the legislature did not intend that sales to the state be included in the Act, because to do so would be to violate the general rule of statutory construction that "the state is not bound by the provisions of a general statute, where the effect of such statute would be to restrict the rights of the state, to affect its interests, or to impose liabilities upon it, unless it is named expressly." Morris v. State ex rel. Walcott, 88 Okl. 189, 212 P. 588; and see Aetna Accident & Liability Co. v. Miller, 54 Mont. 377, 170 P. 760, L.R.A.1918C, 954.

As before stated, the state is not mentioned in the Act. Whether the Act would apply to the state as a seller we need not now determine. It does not restrict the state or affect its legitimate interests as a buyer. The purpose to be accomplished by Chapter 80 can as well be defeated by sales to the state as to others. If sales below cost when made to individuals for the purpose of injuring competition and destroying competition...