William O. Douglas

“ Otherwise those with the most prestige get the largest discounts and the independent merchants are more and more forced to the wall.
The case was argued as if the grant of discounts was a natural right and that the Act should be construed so as to make the granting of them easy. The Act reflects, however, a purpose to control practices that lead to monopoly and an impoverishment of our middle class. I would therefore read it in a way that preserves as much of our traditional free enterprise as possible. Free enterprise is not free when monopoly power is used to breed more monopoly. ”

“ However, in the absence of a sound basis for determining the actual cost of selling to particular customers, the sales to each customer must bear their proportionate share of the entire selling expense. A cost justification based on the difference between an estimated average cost of selling to one or two large customers and an average cost of selling to all other customers cannot be accepted as a defense to a charge of price discrimination.'
Where centralized purchasing for many stores takes place, the costs of dealing with the group as a class become relevant to the problem under § 2 (a) . ”

“ We have here purchases by constituent members of chain stores of milk and milk products that will be sold at the particular store. The competitor is not a member of a competing chain or, if it is, the chain of which it is a part is a smaller one. ”