Spears Free Clinic and Hospital v. Cleere
| Decision Date | 10 May 1952 |
| Docket Number | No. 4388.,4388. |
| Parties | SPEARS FREE CLINIC AND HOSPITAL FOR POOR CHILDREN v. CLEERE et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
George Louis Creamer, Denver, Colo. (Charles Ginsberg, Denver, Colo., on the brief), for appellant.
Kenneth W. Robinson, Denver, Colo. (James T. Burke, Duke W. Dunbar, H. Lawrence Hinkley, James D. Parriott, Jr., J. P. Nordlund and Robert D. Charlton, all of Denver, Colo., on the briefs), for appellees.
Before PHILLIPS, Chief Judge, and BRATTON and MURRAH, Circuit Judges.
Spears Free Clinic and Hospital for Poor Children,1 a corporation, brought this action to recover damages under 15 U.S.C. A. § 15 for violation of 15 U.S.C.A. §§ 1 and 2. On motion of the Spears Hospital the court dismissed the action as to certain defendants. The remaining defendants2 are the Medical Society of the City and County of Denver, a Colorado corporation, former and present members of the State Board of Health of the State of Colorado, and former and present officials or trustees of the Medical Society. One of the defendants is a licensed dentist, one is a registered pharmacist, and two are attorneys duly licensed to practice law in the State of Colorado. The other defendants are doctors of medicine, duly licensed to practice in the State of Colorado, and are members of the Medical Society. The defendants interposed a motion to dismiss the action on the ground that it did not state a claim on which relief could be granted. The trial court sustained the motion and dismissed the action. Spears Hospital has appealed.
The complaint alleges that the Spears Hospital operates as a chiropractic institution and has on its staff licensed chiropractors, laboratory technicians, X-ray technicians, physiotherapists, nurses and dieticians; that it provides facilities wherein persons are given and furnished, by duly licensed persons, chiropractic treatments, that are permitted by the laws of Colorado; and that "numerous persons from all of the United States, and from many foreign countries" regularly come to the institution for treatment. It further alleges that the defendants combined and conspired to prevent the licensing of such institution by the proper authorities of the State of Colorado, to prevent the operation and maintenance of such institution, and to allocate to the members of the medical profession within the State of Colorado the entire practice of the healing arts within that state, to the exclusion and restraint of the practice of chiropractic; and that the defendants did certain acts to prevent the maintenance of the Spears Hospital as a chiropractic institution and to monopolize the entire practice of the healing arts within the State of Colorado in the medical profession, to the exclusion and restraint of the practice of chiropractic.
The practice of the healing arts in Colorado, including chiropractic, is wholly local in character. The alleged conspiracy and the acts alleged to have been done in furtherance thereof had for their purpose and object the monopolization and restraint of purely local activities. No price fixing or price maintenance for professional or other services was involved. There was no intent to injure, obstruct or restrain interstate or foreign commerce. The mere fact that a fortuitous and incidental effect of such conspiracy and acts may be to reduce the number of persons who will come from other states and countries to the Spears Hospital for chiropractic treatments does not create such a relation between interstate and foreign commerce and such local activities as to make them a part of such commerce.3
To come within the purview of the Sherman Act the restraint of commerce or the obstruction of commerce must be direct and substantial and not merely incidental or remote.4 The conspiracy or combination must be aimed or directed at the kind of restraint which the Act prohibits, or such restraint must be the natural and probable consequence of the conspiracy.5
A specific intent to restrain trade or create a monopoly need not always be shown. It is sufficient that a restraint or monopoly, within the purview of the Act, results as a consequence of the defendants' conduct. The defendants "must be held to have intended the necessary and direct consequences of their acts, and cannot be heard to say the contrary."6
Where, however, the object and purpose is to restrain or monopolize activities or matters purely local in character, those facts may be considered in determining whether the effect on interstate or foreign commerce is direct and substantial or only incidental, indirect and remote.7 In Levering & G. Co. v. Morrin, 289 U.S. 103, 53 S.Ct. 549, 77 L.Ed. 1062, the complainants were engaged in fabricating and erecting structural iron and steel and attempts were made by unions in the City of New York to compel them to employ only union labor in this work. The complaint alleged that all the steel used by the complainants in the City of New York was transported from other states, and that the success of the respondents' efforts would result in the destruction of the complainants' interstate traffic in steel. The court said, 289 U.S. at page 107, 53 S.Ct. at page 551, 77 L.Ed. 1062:
8
A curtailment of the manufacture of articles to be shipped in interstate commerce or the lessening of the number of persons who travel in interstate commerce, resulting from a conspiracy to restrain or monopolize a...
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