Superior Packing Co. v. Porter, 13305.
| Decision Date | 05 September 1946 |
| Docket Number | No. 13305.,13305. |
| Citation | 156 F.2d 193 |
| Parties | SUPERIOR PACKING CO. v. PORTER, Price Administrator. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Richard S. Felhaber, of St. Paul, Minn., and Theodore E. Rein, of Chicago, Ill. (Alexander T. Spare, of Chicago, Ill., and Gustav A. Larson, of St. Paul, Minn., on the brief), for appellant.
David London, Chief, Appellate Branch, Office of Price Administration, of Washington, D. C. (George Moncharsh, Deputy Administrator for Enforcement, Milton Klein, Director, Litigation Division, and Nathan Siegel, Sp. Appellate Atty., all of Washington, D. C., and George E. Leonard, Regional Litigation Atty., of Chicago, Ill., and Harris J. Nuernberg, Dist. Enforcement Atty., and Amherst Tautges, Enforcement Atty., Counsel for Price Administrator, Office of Price Administration, both of St. Paul, Minn., for appellee.
Before GARDNER and THOMAS, Circuit Judges, and DUNCAN, District Judge.
This is an appeal from a judgment for the plaintiff in an action brought by the Administrator, Office of Price Administration, against the defendant, Superior Packing Company, to recover treble damages under § 205(e) and for an injunction under § 205(a) of the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, 56 Stat. 23, as amended, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, §§ 901-946.
The defendant slaughters beef at its plant in St. Paul, Minnesota, and ships and sells its products at wholesale to customers in Boston, New York, and other eastern cities. The judgment appealed from awarded statutory damages for the alleged violation of Revised Maximum Price Regulation (RMPR) No. 169 and Maximum Price Regulation (MPR) No. 398 in failing to deduct a 25 cents per hundredweight discount for meat sold and delivered in carload lots; and for making a 25 cents per hundredweight delivery charge in violation of RMPR No. 169. The judgment also granted injunctive relief.
The sections of the Regulations under the Act referred to above are as follows:
RMPR 169, § 1364.453(b). (Italics supplied.)
RMPR 169, § 1364.455(a) (2). "Carload" means:
"(i) A shipment by rail of fresh or frozen wholesale meat cuts * * * to a single delivery point, of at least the minimum weight upon which the railroad carload rate from the point of shipment to the delivery point, as evidenced by the tariffs of railroad carriers, is based." (Italics supplied.)
The facts are not in dispute. The alleged violations for failure to deduct the 25 cents per hundredweight discount occurred between October 6, 1943, and October 4, 1944. Only carloads of meat weighing more than 15,000 pounds are involved. During the period under review the defendant shipped 10,218,732 pounds of beef carcasses and cuts of beef, subject to RMPR No. 169 but did not deduct from the zone prices the carload discount of 25 cents per hundredweight amounting to $25,546.82, and 1,442,757 pounds of variety meats and edible by-products, subject to MPR No. 398 without deducting the 25 cents per hundredweight discount amounting to $3,606.89.
The practice of the defendant giving rise to the present dispute is illustrated by the shipment of its beef products to the city of Boston where it had four customers to whom it sold an average of one or more carloads a week during the period involved. The part of each carload sold to one of these customers was less than 15,000 pounds, but the total carload or the sum of the four sales exceeded that amount. The car was consigned to one party but the contents were labeled and invoiced to the several customers. Upon arrival of the car in Boston the consignee notified the purchasers each of whom thereupon picked up his portion of the shipment. The defendant paid the freight charges to Boston and each customer paid the transportation charges from the point of delivery to his place of business.
The question presented by these shipments is whether the carload discount provisions of RMPR No. 169 and MPR No. 398, supra, are applicable to actual sales of less than carload lots where the seller ships in carload quantities to a designated consignee and the buyers take possession and delivery from the point of destination of the carload. The answer to the inquiry depends upon the interpretation of the regulations.
The court held the failure of defendant to make the deductions on shipments of beef carcasses violated § 1364.453(b) of RMPR No. 169 and failure to make the deductions on variety meats violated § 15 (b) of MPR No. 398.
It was contended in the trial court and argued here that as construed by the Administrator the...
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