Olson Farms, Inc. v. Safeway Stores, Inc.

649 F.2d 1370
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedNovember 8, 1979
DocketNo. 77-2068
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 649 F.2d 1370 (Olson Farms, Inc. v. Safeway Stores, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Olson Farms, Inc. v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 649 F.2d 1370 (10th Cir. 1979).

Opinions

MILLER, Judge.

This appeal is from an order of the district court for the District of Utah dismissing the complaint of Olson Farms, Inc. (“Olson Farms”), a Delaware corporation,1 on motion of defendants-appellees. Olson Farms filed its complaint on March 12, 1975. As amended, the complaint states that the claim “arises under the laws of the United States and arises out of Acts of Congress regulating commerce or protecting trade and commerce against restraints and monopolies.” It seeks a declaratory judgment that Olson Farms is entitled to contribution or, in the alternative, indemnity from defendants-appellees2 with respect to a judgment against it on a jury verdict in an antitrust suit in the district court for the District of Utah. The suit was by fourteen egg producers against Olson Farms and Oakdell Egg Farms, Inc. The judgment amounted $1,950,827.23, representing damages of $574,593, trebled (15 U.S.C. § 15), plus attorneys’ fees and costs,3 and ran against Olson Farms only, injunctive relief being granted against Oakdell Egg Farms, Inc. The egg producers’ claims were for the difference between what they were actually paid for their eggs and what they would have been paid but for a price fixing conspiracy in violation of section 1 of the Sherman Act and a conspiracy to violate section 2 of that Act (monopoly) in the distribution of shell eggs in Utah and Franklin County, Idaho. 15 U.S.C. §§ 1 and 1px solid var(--green-border)">2.4 Olson Farms’ complaint also states that the egg producers had claimed sales and damages as follows:

Claimed Egg Buyer Sales (doz.) Damages
Safeway Stores, Inc. 6,297,999 $ 271,129
Egg Products Co. 4,497,222 197,618
Snow White Egg Co. 3,574,070 157,052
Countryside Farms, Inc., and Gusto Marketing Systems, Inc. 2,724,824 119,961
Olson Farms 2,288,650 99,656

In its complaint, Olson Farms contends that, without contribution or indemnity, defendants-appellees (its alleged coconspirators) would be unjustly enriched by the amount of the antitrust judgment against Olson Farms attributable to the eggs bought by defendants-appellees.

Defendants-appellees moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. In opposition, Olson Farms argued, inter alia, that: (a) it had purchased eggs from only three of the fourteen plaintiffs; (b) it had purchased only eleven percent of the total eggs sold by the plaintiffs during the damages period, which covered years prior to 1972; and (c) most if not all of the remaining eighty-nine percent was purchased by defendants-appellees. By order dated October 21, 1977, the district court [1373]*1373granted the motion to dismiss, holding that Olson Farms had stated no valid claim for contribution or indemnity under either federal or state law5 and that the claim of unjust enrichment was but an expression of the claim for contribution or indemnity. It said:

The court is of the opinion that under the circumstances of this case the availability of indemnity or contribution to the plaintiff for alleged violation of antitrust laws is governed exclusively by the Federal antitrust laws and that said laws afford no such remedy. The court is further of the opinion that no actionable claim for indemnity has been alleged in the complaint. In any event, the requirements for a cause of indemnification are not found in the circumstances of this case.

Contribution

Neither the Sherman Act nor the Clayton Act provides for a right of an adjudicated antitrust conspirator to contribution from his coconspirators. Nor does such a right exist under Federal common law. Thus, in Union Stock Yards Co. v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co., 196 U.S. 217, 224, 25 S.Ct. 226, 227, 49 L.Ed. 453 (1905), a suit involving negligent tortfeasors, the Supreme Court declared:

[T]he general principle of law is well settled that one of several wrongdoers cannot recover against another wrongdoer, although he may have been compelled to pay all the damages for the wrong done.

And again, in Halcyon Lines v. Haenn Ship Ceiling & Refitting Corp., 342 U.S. 282, 285, 72 S.Ct. 277, 279, 96 L.Ed. 318 (1952), the Court, noting that the admiralty rule of contribution is an exception to the general common law rule and citing the Union Stock Yards Co. case, stated:

In the absence of legislation, courts exercising a common-law jurisdiction have generally held that they cannot on their own initiative create an enforceable right of contribution as between joint tortfeasors.

This court, too, has recognized that “[t]he general rule is that, in the absence of express contract, there is no contribution between joint tort-feasors.” Security Insurance Co. of New Haven v. Johnson, 276 F.2d 182, 185 (10th Cir. 1960).6 See also Goldlawr, Inc. v. Shubert, 276 F.2d 614, 616-17 (3d Cir. 1960); Sabre Shipping Corp. v. American President Lines, 298 F.Supp. 1339 (S.D.N.Y.1969).

With one exception,7 the cases cited by appellant for an exception to the general rule have not involved violation of the antitrust laws. For example, appellant relies upon Kohr v. Allegheny Airlines, Inc., 504 F.2d 400 (7th Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 421 U.S. 978, 95 S.Ct. 1980, 44 L.Ed.2d 470 [1374]*1374(1975), where the court adopted the position of the small number of states that have judicially recognized a right to contribution in favor of an unintentional tortfeasor. As an intentional violator of the antitrust laws,8 appellant can take no comfort from that case. In that respect, the words of the court in Sabre Shipping Corp. v. American President Lines, supra at 1346, are pertinent:

If the Supreme Court [in the Union Stock Yards and Halcyon Lines cases] was reluctant to depart from the rule as between unintentional tortfeasors, ... how presumptuous it would be for this Court to do so for the benefit of intentional wrongdoers, whose acts are so severely castigated by Congress, to the point of providing criminal sanctions including imprisonment.

Olson Farms argues that there was no showing in the Cackling Acres case that its misconduct was “active” and, rather, that its misconduct was passive, apparently on the basis that it did not organize the conspiracies but joined them after they were under way. The Supreme Court has answered this in

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Olson Farms, Inc. v. Safeway Stores, Incorporated
649 F.2d 1370 (Tenth Circuit, 1981)

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649 F.2d 1370, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/olson-farms-inc-v-safeway-stores-inc-ca10-1979.