United States v. Procter & Gamble Company

180 F. Supp. 195
CourtDistrict Court, D. New Jersey
DecidedFebruary 8, 1960
DocketCiv. A. 1196-52
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 180 F. Supp. 195 (United States v. Procter & Gamble Company) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Procter & Gamble Company, 180 F. Supp. 195 (D.N.J. 1960).

Opinion

HARTSHORNE, District Judge.

In seeking to implement the opinion of our highest Court in this very case, United States v. Procter & Gamble Co., 1957, 356 U.S. 677, 78 S.Ct. 983, 2 L.Ed.2d 1077, this Court held, in its opinion filed herein on June 9, 1959, 174 F.Supp. 233, 235 (D.C.N.J.):

“The critical question thus is, when this case first became only ‘a civil case.’ From that time on, our highest court has said that using the Grand Jury to elicit evidence in the case * * * would require that any advantage thus obtained improperly by the Government be wiped out, by giving the opposing party the use of so much of the Grand Jury transcript as was thus obtained by a criminal procedure in a purely civil case.”

Following this defendants ascertained that while, according to the written instructions given those in charge of the Grand Jury proceedings herein, same were originally to be conducted both for criminal and civil purposes thereafter, as stated by this Court, “on November 14, 1952, the then Attorney General decided not to ask for the return of an indictment by the Grand Jury, upon the basis of the evidence previously taken before that body, “United States v. Proctor & Gamble Co., D.C.N.J., 175 F.Supp. 198, 199. Accordingly, defendants asked for, and have received, the transcript of the proceedings of the Grand Jury on and after that date until the termination of such proceedings on November 25, 1952.

However, our highest Court, in its above decision, which reversed the order for complete discovery of the Grand Jury proceedings herein by another branch of this Court, held (1) that such discovery would lie only where the plaintiff Government had used the criminal process of a Grand Jury in a purely civil proceeding; (2) as to particular Grand Jury testimony, that “a much more particularized, more discrete showing of need is necessary to establish ‘good cause’ ” for its discovery in order to overcome the “indispensable secrecy of grand jury proceedings”; and (3) that the “delay and substantial costs” caused defendants by taking depositions “fall short of proof that without the transcript a defense would be greatly prejudiced or that without reference to it an injustice would be done.” Procter *200 & Gamble, supra, 356 U.S. at page 682, 78 S.Ct. at pages 986, 987.

Thus, so far as defendants may-desire any additional transcript of such Grand Jury proceedings, they must show additional particularized good cause. In certain aspects this has apparently been done. Defendants have moved to be shown the transcript of the testimony of one Reilly, a witness since deceased, whose testimony is therefore unavailable to them on deposition. Barring the fact that this witness has made available to defendants a really complete memorandum of all his Grand Jury testimony, which, if subject to question, must be decided impartially, his Grand Jury testimony should therefore be made available to the defendants who desire it, in order that they be placed on a substantial parity with plaintiff.

Not content with the above aid obtained from this Court, defendants further move that (1) the entire Grand Jury transcript should be suppressed from use by plaintiff Government, not only per se, but as to any leads therefrom which the Government may have obtained; (2) all the testimony before the Grand Jury should be turned over to it; and (3) all such testimony should be impounded, including any leads which plaintiff Government might have obtained therefrom, permitting disclosure °only on special cause shown.

In deciding if any of this additional relief is to be granted to the defendants, the prime requisite is to determine, bearing in mind the normal secrecy of Grand Jury proceedings, what will do justice to both parties—to the defendants, on the one hand, and, on the other, to the plaintiff Government, representing the public in carrying out the Congressional mandate of enforcing the antitrust acts. The fact is that over seven years ago a Grand Jury sat for a year and a half in this matter and heard’ some thirty witnesses, who produced literally hundreds of thousands of documents. Such evidence obviously constitutes the essential basis of the case of the plaintiff Government. Either the suppression of all this information and the leads obtained by the Government therefrom, or the impounding of all that information and those leads from the Government, will practically put an end to the Government’s case, and will make it impossible for the Department of Justice to attempt to carry out the Congressional will in that regard. The only way conceivable to this Court by which such impounding could fail to prevent the Government from carrying out its duty under Section 4 of the Sherman Act, would be to have plaintiff Government again seek, on deposition, to obtain these same thirty witnesses and these same hundreds of thousands of documents. Since the Government called its first Grand Jury witness upon the basis of a lead obtained other than through the Grand Jury, it is possible that it could take the deposition of such witness and thereafter, step by step, pursue this procedure to the bitter end. But this procedure would obviously take much longer than the year and a half it took the Grand Jury over seven years ago. At each step the Government would have to prove, under the proposed impoundment procedure, that its leads as to such step did not come from its Grand Jury information but from other sources. Then, after all this, the utmost that could be expected would be that the Government would be in exactly the same position as it is now. Surely another remedy should be sought rather than any such impracticable technique. That another just remedy is available has been indicated by the Supreme Court itself in Procter & Gamble, supra, in holding that disclosure to the defendants, as above indicated, would meet the needs of justice, either partially, on the showing of “particularized * * * good cause” or “wholesale” to the extent that “the criminal procedure is subverted.” Thereby the plaintiff, without preventing it from doing its official duty, will have been deprived of any undue advantage it has gained by taking this limited amount of evidence for a purely civil purpose before the Grand Jury rather *201 than in public, 15 U.S.C.A. § 30, and be compelled to place the defendants on a substantial equality with it.

Surely this is a wiser method of placing the parties on an equal basis—by making the evidence in question available to both sides—rather than by making the evidence basic to the cause unavailable to either side by its suppression or impounding, and thereby defeating the national policy as to the enforcement of the antitrust laws. There are, moreover, additional reasons why either suppression or impounding is not an appropriate remedy.

Suppression

Suppression is generally confined as a remedy to punish the Government’s violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, of such basic importance to the public in safeguarding it from unreasonable searches and seizures, or its equivalent in wire tapping. Silverthorne Lumber Company v. United States, 1920, 251 U.S. 385, 40 S.Ct. 182, 64 L.Ed. 319; Nardone v.

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Bluebook (online)
180 F. Supp. 195, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-procter-gamble-company-njd-1960.