Hugo Black

“ To uphold this view of the District Court is to treat a lawsuit as a game in which the party who gets there first with the most questions wins the game. But lawsuits are not games. The end of each one of them, if courts remain true to the ancient traditions of justice, is to try each case in a way that permits truth to triumph. ”

“ No judge is granted power under Rule 56 or any other rule to completely deny a party all opportunity to take depositions or to get affidavits essentially needed to get a fair trial of his case. Such a course of conduct cannot possibly be called 'just' within the meaning of Rule 56 (f) , and yet here this plaintiff, over a course of years, repeatedly pleaded with the district judge for an opportunity to examine Jones and other Cities Service employees particularly familiar with the Iranian oil deal in order to present facts he had no other way to obtain. ”

“ To carry out the boycott the alleged conspirators threatened all other companies with dire economic consequences if they dealt in the Iranian oil. Despite these threats, Cities, which did not control sources of oil adequate to supply its customers and which therefore had been compelled to buy from the major companies, expressed to petitioner a desire to obtain Iranian oil. Petitioner was offering to sell the Iranian oil on very attractive terms, and Cities agreed to go to Iran in order to evaluate the prospects, provided it received an invitation from Iranian Premier Mossadegh. ”