The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 272: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States and the Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, June-August, 1921. Page: 328
xx, 1023 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this legislative document.
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272 FEDERAL REPORTER
the defendants before us, themselves the buyers and sellers. They only fur-
nished certain facilities for the sales."
[3, 4] The question remains, however, whether the plaintiffs are
shown to have been injured by any restraint of commerce disclosed by
the complaints. Various decisions have held that a plaintiff who has
been injured may recover damages, though he has not himself been en-
gaged in interstate commerce. United Copper Securities Co. v. Amal-
gamated Copper Co., 232 Fed. at page 577, 146 C. C. A. 532. There
must, however, be a direct relation between the restraint and the injury.
[5] While it is averred in the Sullivan complaint that he was an
independent billposter, as well as a solicitor of this form of advertis-
ing, and that he was prevented from making contracts by the defend-
ants, I find no precise allegation that the contracts were purchases of
sample posters. I do not think it can be inferred, from the general
allegation that billposters at times purchased directly from the litho-
graphers, that Sullivan was accustomed to do this, or that any of the
defendants interfered with such a line of business on his part. Con-
sequently it can only be deduced from the pleading that the defend-
ants were engaged in a conspiracy to prevent Sullivan from soliciting
billposting business and placing posters. For the reasons that I dis-
cuss more at length in connection with the Ramsay and Rankin Cases,
such a wrong, if any, is not under the doctrine of the case of Hopkins
v. United States, supra, a violation of the Sherman Act It, at most,
would be the result of a common-law conspiracy, and proper allega-
tions of diverse citizenship are lacking. Judge Hough dismissed a
complaint for such a cause of action, where the very combination un-
der consideration here was involved, in the unreported case of Hoke
v. Beall et al.
[6] The decree of Judge Landis against the defendants granted in a
suit in equity by the United States brought to dissolve the Associated
Billposters has been pleaded. This has been done because of the provi-
sions of section 5 of the Clayton Act (Comp. St. 8835e) that such a
decree shall be prima facie evidence against the defendants "as to all
matters respecting which said * * * decree would be an estoppel
as between the parties thereto." This provision is only a rule of evi-
dence. Conclusions of law embodied in the decree could only have the
force of precedents, nor can the decree as adjudging facts be taken to
override allegations of fact as to the nature of defendants' combina-
tion appearing elsewhere in the complaint.
As 1 have already pointed out, there are features of the Associated
Billposters' organization which undoubtedly restrain interstate com-
merce. Solicitors of billposting, though engaged in a business having
no direct relation to interstate commerce, might conspire with organi-
zation billposters to prevent the sale of posters to billposters not mem-
bers of their organization. This would violate the Sherman Act, but
it would still be true that the mere agreement by billposters not to
place posters for advertisers who employed independent billposters
would not be a contract in restraint of interstate commerce. Hopkins
v. United States, supra. Nothing in the decree or opinion of Judge
Landis tends to show that Sullivan suffered injury arising out of any
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The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 272: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States and the Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, June-August, 1921., legislative document, 1921; Saint Paul, Minnesota. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38843/m1/350/: accessed April 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.