Hugo Black

“ The proceedings against Minneapolis-Honeywell began before the Commission nine years ago. Sixteen hundred pages of evidence were put on the record. It all goes to nought apparently because Commission counsel lacked sufficient clairvoyance to anticipate that this Court would hold that the July judgment rather than the one in September was final. Rules of practice and procedure should be used to promote the ends of justice, not to defeat them. ”

“ Mr. Justice BLACK, dissenting.
The end result of what the Court does today is to leave standing a Court of Appeals decree which I think is so clearly wrong that it could well be reversed without argument. The decree set aside an order of the Federal Trade Commission directing Minneapolis-Honeywell to stop violating § 2 (a) of the Robinson-Patman Act by selling oil burner controls to some customers cheaper than to others. The Court of Appeals not only set aside the Commission's order as permitted under some circumstances. ”

“ See, e.g., the following: 'But piecemeal appeals have never been encouraged.' City of Morgantown, W. Va. v. Royal Ins. Co., 337 U.S. 254, 258, 69 S.Ct. 1067, 1070, 93 L.Ed. 1347. 'Congress from the very beginning has, by forbidding piecemeal disposition on appeal of what for practical purposes is a single controversy, set itself against enfeebling judicial administration.' Cobbledick v. ”