Straus v. American Publishers' Ass'n
| Decision Date | 09 December 1912 |
| Docket Number | 63. |
| Citation | 201 F. 306 |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
| Parties | STRAUS et al. v. AMERICAN PUBLISHERS' ASS'N et al. |
Wise & Seligsberg, of New York City (E. E. Wise and Wallace Macfarlane, both of New York City, of counsel), for plaintiffs in error.
S. H Olin, of New York City, for defendants in error.
Before COXE, WARD, and NOYES, Circuit Judges.
October 1, 1909, the plaintiffs began this action at law to recover treble damages against the defendants under the federal anti-trust law of July 2, 1890. The complaint alleges that the defendants, publishers of books, combined to organize a membership corporation under the laws of New York called the American Publishers' Association, of which they were members and which included a majority of the publishers in the United States, and of which the other defendants were the directors for the first year and also officers or directors of defendant corporations; that the purpose of the association was to maintain the retail price of copyrighted books and was to be effected by an agreement of the publishers to sell their books, copyrighted or uncopyrighted only to such dealers as would maintain the net retail price of the copyrighted books; that in further prosecution of the combination the defendants aided the organization of a voluntary unincorporated association to co-operate with the Publishers' Association, called the American Booksellers' Association, which included a majority of the booksellers of the United States; that the purpose of this organization was to bring about an agreement between the booksellers to maintain the retail price of the publishers' copyrighted books by refusing to sell the books, copyrighted or uncopyrighted, of any publisher who declined to support the combination, and by refusing to sell any books at less than the usual retail price to any bookseller who cut the retail price of the publishers' copyrighted books; that these combinations went into operation May 1, 1901, and have been continued ever since, contrary to the provisions of the anti-trust law of July 2, 1890, except that in about the month of March, 1904, the Court of Appeals of the state of New York (177 N.Y. 473, 69 N.E. 1107, 64 L.R.A. 701, 101 Am.St.Rep. 819), in an action brought against the defendants herein and others, having declared the foregoing agreements unlawful so far as uncopyrighted books were concerned, the Publishers' Association and Booksellers' Association modified the said agreements so as to exclude uncopyrighted books, but continued the same illegal combination and conduct in respect to copyrighted books; that because the plaintiffs refused to conform to the regulations of these combinations they were put on a cut-off list, their business followed up by detectives, and their supply of books cut off, to their damage in the sum of $125,000.
The answer of the defendants contained, among other things, a separate defense to the effect that the plaintiffs had brought an action in equity in the Supreme Court of the state of New York, December 3, 1902, against them (except defendants Scribner, Scott, Britt, Putnam, Harvey, and Appleton, who were trustees and officers of certain of the defendants) for the same cause of action in which the defendants (except the defendants aforesaid) appeared, and in which it was so proceeded that the said agreements were held invalid as to uncopyrighted books and valid as to copyrighted books, and an interlocutory judgment was entered May 20, 1909, restraining the defendants from interfering in any way with the purchase by the plaintiffs of uncopyrighted books, and directing the plaintiffs' damages to be ascertained by a referee, which judgment was on appeal affirmed by the Appellate Division and by the Court of Appeals. The referee having subsequently ascertained the damages, final judgment was entered on his report for $3,675.60 damages and costs, from which judgment the plaintiffs appealed to the Court of Appeals, which affirmed the same. Thereupon they took a writ of error to the final judgment of the Supreme Court of New York, which is now pending in the Supreme Court of the United States. The said judgment was pleaded as res adjudicata of all the matters complained of, and profert of the same was made.
The plaintiffs replied to this defense that the judgment in the state court was not res adjudicata, and that the cause of action was not the same as that in the action in the state court, because damages in respect to copyrighted books was excluded in the latter action, because the present action was founded on the federal statute, under which the state court had no jurisdiction, because...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Nash County Bd. of Educ. v. Biltmore Co.
...under a state antitrust statute barred under the doctrine of res judicata a later federal antitrust suit was Straus v. American Publishers' Assn., 201 F. 306, 310 (2d Cir. 1912), appeal dis. 235 U.S. 716, 35 S.Ct. 197, 59 L.Ed. 438. In sustaining the bar, the Court in that casedamages as th......
-
United States v. General Electric Co.
...lamp industry, if it has changed, has become less prominent than it was prior to the 1926 suit. It cited the case of Straus v. American Publishers' Ass'n, 2 Cir., 201 F. 306, as authority for the proposition that successive suits may not be maintained when they are based upon a continuing c......
-
United States v. United Air Lines, Inc.
...proceeding on review is a trial de novo. Kansas Pacific Railway Company v. Twombly, 100 U.S. 78, 25 L.Ed. 550; Straus v. American Publishers' Association, 2 Cir., 201 F. 306; Roberts v. Anderson, 10 Cir., 66 F.2d 874; E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. v. Richmond Guano Co., 4 Cir., 297 F. Kansa......
-
Hayes v. Solomon
...S.Ct. 701, 30 L.Ed.2d 736 (1971); Blanchard v. Commonwealth Oil Co., 294 F.2d 834 (5th Cir. 1961). Compare also Straus v. American Publishers' Ass'n., 201 F. 306 (2d Cir. 1912), Appeal dismissed, 235 U.S. 716, 35 S.Ct. 197, 59 L.Ed. 438 (1914), with Lyons v. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 222......