Wilder Manufacturing Company v. Corn Products Refining Company
| Decision Date | 23 February 1915 |
| Docket Number | No. 71,71 |
| Citation | 35 S.Ct. 398,236 U.S. 165,59 L.Ed. 520 |
| Parties | D. R. WILDER MANUFACTURING COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. CORN PRODUCTS REFINING COMPANY |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. Marion Smith for plaintiff in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 166-168 intentionally omitted] Messrs. James W. Austin, Preston Davie, Morgan J. O'Brien, Albert B. Boardman, and Young B. Smith for defendant in error.
We refer to the parties, the one as the manufacturing, and the other as the refining company. Sued by the refining company in April, 1909, to recover the amount of the price of two lots of glucose or corn syrup which it had bought in January, 1909, and which it had consumed and not paid for, the manufacturing company asserted its nonliability on the following grounds, which we summarize:
(a) Because the refining company had no legal existence, as it was a combination composed of all the manufacturers of glucose or corn syrup in the United States, illegally organized with the object of monopolizing all dealings in such products, in violation of the anti-trust act of Congress. That having illegally brought into one organization all the manufacturers of glucose or corn syrup, the corporation had unreasonably advanced the price of the products of its manufacture to the injury of the public. (b) That this end being accomplished, the corporation sought to perpetuate its monopoly by rendering it difficult or impossible for competitors to go into the business of producing glucose or corn syrup by devising a so-called profitsharing scheme, by which it was proposed to give to all those who purchased from the combination a stipulated percentage upon the amount of the purchases made in one year, to be paid at the end of the following year, provided that during such time they dealt with no one else but the combination. While the sum of the percentage thus offered, it was alleged, varied from year to year, nevertheless it was charged that in substance the contract or offer remained the same. The tender to the manufacturing company of a right to participate in the scheme, it was alleged, was first made in 1907 relative to the business done in 1906 in the form of a letter which is in the margin,1 and this offer or asserted contract was continued from year to year. It was further alleged that the scheme proved successful in accomplishing its wrongful purpose since, although subsequently independent concerns engaged in the business of manufacturing glucose or corn syrup, and offered to sell their products at prices less than those charged by the combination, such concerns were virtually driven out of business because those who desired to purchase the products were deterred from buying from them for fear of losing the percentage which they would receive from the combination if all their purchases continued to be made from it alone, and moreover because of the dread felt by purchasers that the independents would not be able to resist the overweening and controlling power of the combination. It was moreover alleged that all purchases made by the manufacturing company 'contained the following clause in the contract of purchase: 'The goods herein sold are for your own consumption, and not for resale."
Charging that the condition which made the payment of the proposed profit-sharing percentage depend upon dealing alone with the combination was void and should be disregarded, the answer asked not only that the prayer for judgment for the purchase price be rejected, but that, treating the failure of the manufacturing company to comply with the condition on which the offer of profit sharing was made as immaterial, there should be a judgment for that company for the percentage of profits on the business for the year 1908.
On motion the answer was stricken out as stating no defense. There was a judgment in the absence of further pleading against the manufacturing company for the price of the goods, as sued for, and rejecting its claim for the percentage of profits. This judgment was affirmed by the court below (11 Ga. App. 588, 75 S. E. 918), and because of an assumed failure to give effect to the anti-trust act of Congress this writ of error was prosecuted.
As the context of the answer clearly justified the inference that the sale of the glucose was an interstate transaction, the court below was right in assuming that to be the case, and therefore we put out of view as devoid of merit the contrary suggestion made by the refining company.
Having dealt with the refining company as an existing concern possessing the capacity to sell, speaking generally, the assertion that it had no legal existence, because it was an unlawful combination in violation of the anti-trust act, was irrelevant to the question of the liability of the manufacturing company to pay for the goods, since such defense was a mere collateral attack on the organization of the corporation, which could not be lawfully made.2 Besides, considered from the point of view of the alleged illegality of the corporation, the attack on its existence was absolutely immaterial because the right to enforce the sale did not involve the question of combination, since, conceding the illegal existence of the corporation making the sale, the obligation to pay the price was indubitable, and the duty to enforce it not disputable. This is true because the sale and the obligations which arose from it depended upon a distinct contract, with reciprocal considerations moving between the parties,—the receipt of the goods on the one hand, and the payment of the price on the other. And this is but a form of stating the elementary proposition that courts may not refuse to enforce an otherwise legal contract because of some indirect benefit to a wrongdoer which would be afforded from doing so, or some remote aid to the accomplishment of a wrong which might possibly result,—doctrines of such universal acceptance that no citation of authority is needed to demonstrate their existence, especially in view of the express ruling in Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co. 184 U. S. 540, 46 L. ed. 679, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 431, applying them to the identical general question here involved.
The case therefore reduces itself to the question whether the contract of sale was inherently illegal so as to bring it within the also elementary rule that courts will not exert their powers to enforce illegal contracts or to compel wrongdoing. The only suggestion as to the intrinsic illegality of the sale results from the averments of the answer as to the offer of a percentage of profits upon the condition of dealing exclusively with the refining company for the following year, and the clause to the effect that the goods were bought by the manufacturing company for its own use, and not for resale. But we can see no ground whatever for holding that the contract of sale was illegal because of these conditions. In fact, it is not so contended in argument, since substantially the proposition which is relied upon is that, although such stipulations were intrinsically legal, they become illegal as the result of the duty to consider them from the point of view that one of the parties was an illegal combination, interested in inserting such conditions as an efficient means of sustaining its continued wrongdoing, and therefore giving power to accomplish the baneful and prohibited results of its illegal organization,--a duty which, it is urged, results from reason, is commanded by the anti-trust act and the obligation to enforce its provisions, and is required because of a previous decision of this court, enforcing that act (Continental Wall Paper Co. v. Louis Voight & Sons Co. 212 U. S. 227, 53 L. ed. 486, 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 280), unless that decision is to be now qualified or overruled.
In the first place, the contention cannot be sustained consistently with reason. It overthrows the general law. It admits the want of power to assail the...
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