Victor v. Ickes

1 D.C. 58
CourtDistrict of Columbia Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 1, 1933
DocketEquity No. 56298
StatusPublished

This text of 1 D.C. 58 (Victor v. Ickes) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District of Columbia Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Victor v. Ickes, 1 D.C. 58 (D.C. 1933).

Opinion

OPINION

ADKINS, J.

STATEMENT

This suit is filed by four retail distributors of gasoline at Detroit against Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior and Administrator of the Code of Fair Competition for the Petroleum Industry.

The amended bill alleges that each of the plaintiffs is engaged in the distribution of oil and petroleum; that they do a purely local intrastate business of selling their products at their service stations and otherwise; that they established a business which is lawful under the laws of Michigan of giving coupons to customers redeemable in merchandise, usually glassware and earthenware.

They allege that on August 19, 1933, the President approved the Code of Fair Competition for the Petroleum In[60]*60dustry, and on September 13, 1933, approved certain modifications thereof. Rule 17 of Art. Y provides—

“Except by permission of the Planning and Coordination Committee, refiners, distributors, jobbers, wholesalers, retailers, and others engaged in the sale of petroleum products shall not give away oil, premiums, trading stamps, free goods, or other things of value, or grant any special inducement in connection with the sale of petroleum products.”

Plaintiffs allege that the defendant interprets this rule as applicable to their business, and that under such interpretation the rule and the National Recovery Act are unconstitutional because they interfere with the intrastate business of the plaintiffs.

Section 3 (f) of the National Recovery Act authorizes the imposition of a fine of not more than $500 for any violation of a code of fair competition “in any transaction in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce.”

Plaintiffs allege that defendant as Administrator of the Code of Fair Coinpetition for the Petroleum Industry has informed plaintiffs that unless they desist from issuing and redeeming coupons he will have them prosecuted for violating the National Recovery Act.

Plaintiffs also allege that their competitors give free parking space with the sale of gasoline, and give maps and spend large sums in advertising; that plaintiffs’ system of giving premiums is a method of advertising; that the defendant’s conduct is arbitrary and capricious, and does not constitute due process of law because he does not intend to prosecute their competitors for the things above mentioned, and thereby discriminates against plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs pray that defendant may be enjoined from interfering with their business and from attempting to have them prosecuted under the act or under the code.

A rule was issued requiring defendant to show cause why he should not be enjoined as prayed.

[61]*61Defendant filed an answer to the rule, and a motion to dismiss the bill of complaint.

In his answer to the rule defendant says that the practice of giving premiums has been indulged in by certain gas filling stations in Michigan in the past and has resulted immediately in direct price cutting by competing dealers; that this resulting price cutting war has spread in widening circles and frequently across state lines; that there has resulted diminution and dislocation of interstate commerce;, that some retailers diverted their purchase of petroleum products to cheap foreign markets in order to buy gasoline at prices sufficiently low to enable them to continue price cutting and stay in business; that the price cutting was extended back to refiners and producers and brought about a serious and widespread dislocation of business among refiners and a serious impairment and obstruction to the normal flow of gasoline in interstate commerce (par. 5);

That the practice has in many instances compelled retail dealers to go out of business (par. 7);

That the practice has resulted in encouraging certain refiners to use inexpensive and insufficient methods of treating crude oil, thereby causing a waste of an important and exhaustible natural resource of the nation (par. 9);

That the conduct of the petroleum business by the use of such methods seriously and adversely affected for several years past the whole of the petroleum industry in the United States resulting not only in drastic price wars but in reduction of wages, growth of unemployment, and waste of an exhaustible natural resource, all of which affected interstate commerce not only in petroleum and its products but in general;

That the petroleum industry is one of the largest in the United States, furnishing employment to hundreds of thousands of persons; that a substantial portion of the people of the nation are directly interested financially in said industry, [62]*62including production, refining, distributing and marketing of petroleum and its products; said industry is the third largest in the nation; it employs directly hundreds of thousands of wage earners and indirectly contributes to the employment of many other persons; it is a large user of the interstate transportation facilities of the nation; that its products in crude and refined form are transported to practically every town in the United States (par. 10).

The answer is accompanied by numerous affidavits signed by hundreds of men engaged in some branch of the petroleum industry and in some form of interstate commerce in petroleum products between Michigan and other states and also in the retail distribution of such products in Michigan.

Some of the affiants are officers of oil companies engaged in business throughout a substantial portion of all of the nation. Hundreds of affiants are distributors in Detroit or other Michigan cities.

These affidavits overwhelmingly support the answer above summarized.

From the affidavits it appears that the great bulk of gasoline used in Michigan comes from other states of the Union.

In 1931, 1932 and the early part of 1933 there were severe and drastic price wars in Detroit and other Michigan cities. The affidavits give a vivid picture of the origin, duration and effect of some of these wars.

One war was brought about by the fact that a competitor of the Sunny Service Oil Company inaugurated a system of giving premiums with gasoline. This form of price cutting is difficult to meet because no one else knows the cost of the premium the dealer is giving. The Sunny Service Oil Company met this competition by reducing prices, and other competitors were compelled to do likewise. This war was so severe that sixteen distributors in Detroit were driven into bankruptcy.

[63]*63The Sunny Service Oil Company distributes more gasoline to the public than any other single retail marketer in Detroit. In order to continue price cutting and stay in business it was compelled to purchase low-priced gasoline from abroad and import the same into this country. An effect of this war was to substantially restrain the flow of gasoline from other states of the Union into Michigan and to substitute for many millions of gallons of such gasoline the cheap gasoline imported from abroad.

One of the companies forced out of business, the Middleton Oil Company, had distributed in Michigan approximately two and one-half millions of gallons of gasoline per year purchased from refiners in Indiana.

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