Upjohn Co. v. Charles Labs, Inc.

277 F. Supp. 445, 1967 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11730, 1967 Trade Cas. (CCH) 72,307
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedDecember 14, 1967
DocketNo. 65 Civ. 1288
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 277 F. Supp. 445 (Upjohn Co. v. Charles Labs, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Upjohn Co. v. Charles Labs, Inc., 277 F. Supp. 445, 1967 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11730, 1967 Trade Cas. (CCH) 72,307 (S.D.N.Y. 1967).

Opinion

OPINION

TENNEY, District Judge.

Plaintiff, a drug manufacturer, has instituted suit under the Feld-Crawford Act (New York General Business Law, McKinney’s Consol.Laws, c. 20, §§ 369-[447]*447a, 369-b) to enjoin defendant, a retail druggist, from selling plaintiff’s trademarked products at prices less than those stipulated in plaintiff’s fair trade contracts.

Plaintiff seeks only an injunction.

I find the facts to be as follows:

1. Plaintiff is a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the State of Delaware, licensed to do business within the State of New York, and maintains an office within this district.

2. Defendant is a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the State of New York, having its principal place of business within this district, specifically at 62 East 14th Street, City, County and State of New York.

3. Plaintiff is engaged in the manufacture, production, sale and distribution of pharmaceutical drugs, medicines and other commodities.

4. Plaintiff is considered a full-line drug house in that 20 per cent of its line are now prescription or over-the-counter items, the remainder being distributed evenly between antibiotics, steroids or hormones, and anti-diabetic drugs.

5. Each product manufactured and sold by plaintiff bears the trademark “Upjohn” and product marks such as “Unicap”, “Zymacap”, “Cheraeol” and “Kaopectate”, all of which are affixed to the packages and cartons in which such products are packaged.

6. Plaintiff’s products' bearing its trademarks are in free and open competition with like products of other pharmaceutical manufacturers, such as Parke, Davis & Co., Mead Johnson & Co., and E. R. Squibb, Division of Olin Mathieson Chemical Co.

7. During the past several years, plaintiff has expended on the average of $3,000,000.00 per year (6-7 per cent of which has been exclusively allocated to the New York area) for its extensive and continuous program of advertising in medical and other professional journals, in lay magazines and, more recently, on television.

8. Plaintiff’s products enjoy a good reputation in the trade, and it has built up valuable good will with doctors, dentists, pharmacists, hospital and industrial accounts, as well as with consumers.

9. Annual sales of the plaintiff for the entire country approximated $200,-000,000.00 in each of the past several years.

10. Plaintiff sells its products to wholesale druggists, retail druggists, hospitals, veterinary hospitals, physicians and industrial clinics.

11. Defendant operates a drugstore at 62 East 14th Street, New York City, in which it sells at retail products purchased directly from plaintiff and those of other drug and pharmaceutical manufacturers.

12. Plaintiff has entered into uniform fair trade contracts with retailers in the State of New York under which it has established minimum prices for the retail sale of products bearing its name and trademarks, which products may be sold over the counter without the prescription of a physician, dentist or veterinarian.

13. Plaintiff, however, has not entered into such a contract with defendant.

14. When a violation of the plaintiff’s fair trade price schedule is reported, voluntary compliance is first sought by sending a salesman to call upon the account to inform it of plaintiff’s fair trade policy, and to request that said account maintain the fair trade prices on the Upjohn products. The salesman returns to the retailer after a reasonable length of time to inquire whether fair trade prices are being maintained. If the retailer persists in price-cutting, the matter is referred to counsel for appropriate action. Plaintiff’s counsel is invested with full authority to issue warning letters to the retailers and to shop at the store and bring suit against any [448]*448retailer found to be cutting prices on plaintiff’s products.

15. Plaintiff has, when necessary, brought enforcement actions to eliminate price violations by retailers in the State of New York and has uniformly and diligently enforced its retail fair trade program, as evidenced by the number of suits which have been brought on behalf of plaintiff and the 200 or more injunctions which have been obtained as a result thereof.

16. Having discovered that defendant was offering for sale and selling, at retail, products bearing plaintiff’s name and trademarks at prices below those established by plaintiff in its fair trade agreements with other retail druggists in the State of New York, plaintiff notified defendant of the stipulated minimum retail prices for which plaintiff’s over-the-counter products may be sold, and particularly warned defendant, in a letter dated February 18, 1963, not to price-cut these fair traded items.

17. Defendant failed to comply with plaintiff’s request and has continued to offer for sale and to sell plaintiff’s products at prices lower than those stipulated in plaintiff’s fair trade schedule. On three separate occasions, after having been notified of plaintiff’s fair trade schedule, defendant sold to professional shoppers a package of 100 Unicap Vitamins for approximately $2.16, whereas the minimum fair trade price therefor was $3.11.

18. Plaintiff, on an annual basis (including the years 1964, 1965, 1966 and 1967), had offered to its direct retail accounts a certain combination-deal package of 124 Unicap vitamin capsules, such combination consisting of a package of 100 and a package of 24, which combination,-, under plaintiff’s minimum resale price, could be offered for sale and sold to the public at the price established for a package of 100 Unicap vitamins. This offer, however, was only available to the retailers during the three-month “deal period” of each of the aforementioned years.

19. Until 1967, there existed only a limited amount of “deal packages” which could be offered to the retailers, so, consequently, each retailer was allocated an amount of packages directly proportional to its total sales over the course of each year. In 1967, however, when the ceiling on deal-package production was lifted, each retailer could acquire as much of the deal merchandise as it desired, limited only by the maximum amount of credit that plaintiff would extend to each individual retail account.

20. This Court finds no convincing evidence to support defendant’s contention that in order for a retail account to purchase an amount of deal packages plaintiff required a purchase of an equal amount or an additional amount of plaintiff’s other distributed products.

DISCUSSION

Plaintiff’s over-the-counter products are fair-traded. On July 31, 1952, plaintiff entered into a fair trade contract with St. Moritz Chemists, Inc., a New York retailer. Upjohn has a number of similar contracts in effect with retailers in the New York area.

The contract, in pertinent part, reads as follows:

Whereas, the “Commodities”, shown on Schedule A hereto attached, as such Schedule shall be constituted from time to time, are, or may hereafter be, distributed under the trademarks, brands or name of “Manufacturer” in fair, free and open competition with commodities of the same general class produced by others, and the parties hereto desire to avail themselves of the benefits of the Fair Trade Act of the above mentioned State,

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Related

M. J. Krutsinger v. Mead Foods, Inc.
546 F.2d 328 (Tenth Circuit, 1976)
Bowen v. New York News, Inc.
366 F. Supp. 651 (S.D. New York, 1973)

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Bluebook (online)
277 F. Supp. 445, 1967 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11730, 1967 Trade Cas. (CCH) 72,307, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/upjohn-co-v-charles-labs-inc-nysd-1967.