Robinson-Patman Act

“ National Dairy and Raymond J. Wise, a vice-president and director, upon being charged, inter alia, with violating § 3 by making sales below cost for the purpose of destroying competition, moved for dismissal of the Robinson-Patman Act counts of the indictment on the ground that the statute is unconstitutionally vague and indefinite. ”

“ The need to allow sellers to meet competition in price from other sellers while protecting the competitors of the buyers against the buyers' advantages gained from the price discrimination was a major cause of the enactment of the 1936 Robinson-Patman Act. ”

“ Two of the respondents sought permission from Texaco to haul their own fuel using their own tank wagons, but Texaco refused. The special facts of this case thus make it peculiarly difficult for Texaco to claim that it is being held liable for the independent pricing decisions of Gull or Dompier.
As we recognized in Falls City Industries, "the competitive injury component of a Robinson-Patman Act violation is not limited to the injury to competition between the favored and the disfavored purchaser; it also encompasses the injury to competition between their customers." ”

“ We start with the proposition that ' (t) he Robinson-Patman Act was enacted in 1936 to curb and prohibit all devices by which large buyers gained discriminatory preferences over smaller ones by virtue of their greater purchasing power.' FTC v. ”

“ The act of February 1793, conferring ministerial powers upon the state magistrates, and regulating the exercise of the powers of the state executive, is certainly not a law to carry into effect the judicial power of the United States; which judicial power cannot be vested in state officers. If the provisions of the constitution as to fugitive slaves and fugitives from justice, could not be carried into effect without the actual legislation of Congress on the subject, perhaps a power of federal legislation might be implied from the constitution itself ”

“ Judge Nelson, who delivered the opinion of the supreme court on the question as to the effect of the act of Congress, and of the statute of New York, says—"To ascertain which is entitled to paramount authority, we must go back to the source of power—the provision of the constitution; that being conceded to be supreme, and any law in pursuance thereof controlling. The first clause is merely prohibitory upon the states, and forbids the enactment of any law or the adoption of any regulation, in the case of a fugitive slave, by which he may be discharged from the service of his master ”

“ If we ratify the constitution, shall we do any thing by our act to hold the blacks in slavery; or shall we become the partakers of other men's sins? I think, neither of them. Each state is sovereign and independent, to a certain degree; and they have a right, and will regulate their own internal affairs as to themselves appears proper; and shall we refuse to eat or drink, or to be united with those who do not think or act just as we do? Surely not. We are not, in this case, partakers of other men's sins; for in nothing do we voluntarily encourage the slavery of our fellow men. ”

“ Events in the course of the proposed legislation in the Senate and House have pertinence. The Senate inserted the original ineffective language of the Clayton Act in its exact form in the Senate bill. In the same draft it adopted an amendment similar to the proviso ultimately enacted. 80 Cong.Rec. 6426, 6435. In the House, Representative Patman explained his view of the dangers in the original proviso. ”

“ We are not convinced that the court, in the presence of such a determination of constitutional right, confronting the anomalous and grave situation which would be created by a reversal of the judgment against Norris, and an affirmance of the judgment of death in the companion case of Patterson, who had asserted the same right, and having regard to the relation of the two cases and the other circumstances disclosed by the record, would have considered itself powerless to entertain the bill of exceptions or otherwise to provide appropriate relief. ”

“ It is necessary in all governments, but particularly in a federal government, that its judiciary should be competent to the decision of all questions arising out of the constitution." Again, he said—"Every member who has read the constitution with attention, must observe that there are certain fundamental principles in it both of a positive and negative nature, which being intended for the general advantage of the community, ought not to be violated by any future legislation of the particular states. ”

“ It is plain that, according to article 4, section 2, clause 3, of the constitution, a person held as a slave in one state, under the laws thereof, who escapes into another, is not to be discharged from slavery by means of any law or regulation existing in the state to which he escapes.
The owner's property being thus secured and protected by the constitution, he has the same right to take possession of his slave when he finds him in the state to which he escapes, that he would have in the state from which he escaped. ”

“ On writ of error to the Supreme Court of Illinois it was asserted that the trial court's rejection of these contentions deprived Robinson of due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment. His conviction was affirmed, the court finding that no hearing on mental capacity to stand trial had been equested, that the evidence failed to raise sufficient doubt as to his competence to require the trial court to conduct a hearing on its own motion, and further that the evidence did not raise a 'reasonable doubt' as to his sanity at the time of the offense. People v. ”

“ However much, therefore, we may deplore the existence of slavery in any part of the Union, as a national as well as a local evil, yet, as the right of the master to reclaim his fugitive slave is secured to him by the federal constitution, no good citizen, whose liberty and property is protected by that constitution, will interfere to prevent this provision from being carried into full effect, according to its spirit and effect ”

“ The idea that the framers of the constitution intended to leave the regulation of this subject to the states, when the provision itself obviously sprung out of their fears of partial and unjust legislation by the states, in respect to it, cannot readily be admitted. It would present an inconsistency of action, and an unskilfulness in the adoption of means for the end in view, too remarkable to have been overlooked by a much less wise body of men. ”

“ If it be said, as it has often been said, that the government can waive any such forfeiture, I am free to admit that the United States are competent to waive any advantage which they might claim under such enactments, but I deny, that the claimant, having neglected to comply with the terms of a law, and being thus barred, 'at law and in equity,' can, as against an individual citizen, be restored to any right of action by any act of the United States. ”

“ In a suit to vindicate the public interest by enjoining violations of the Sherman Act, the United States should have the same opportunity to show that the asserted shield of patentability does not exist. ”

“ That it shall be auxiliary to the federal government, support and maintain harmony between the United States and foreign powers, and between different states, and prevent a failure of justice in cases to which particular state courts are incompetent. If this judiciary be reviewed as relative to these purposes, I think it will be found that nothing is granted which does not belong to a federal judiciary. Self-defence is its first object. Has not the constitution said, that the states shall not use such and such powers, and given exclusive powers to Congress! ”