Restraint of Trade. In General. Unfair Competition in Natural Monopoly Situation Is Sherman Act Violation; Newspaper Stock Acquisition by Neighboring Monopoly Publishers Not Clayton Act Violation. Union Leader Corp. v. Newspapers of New England, Inc. (D. Mass. 1960)

1960 ◽  
Vol 73 (8) ◽  
pp. 1632
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Union Leader ◽  
Natural Monopoly ◽  
Unfair Competition ◽  
Sherman Act ◽  
Stock Acquisition ◽  
Restraint Of Trade

Restraint of Trade: Labor Disputes and the Sherman Act

1940 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 747
Author(s):  
Franklin M. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Labor Disputes ◽  
Sherman Act ◽  
Restraint Of Trade

Mr. Justice White and the Rule of Reason

1951 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert B. Dishman
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Basic Assumptions ◽  
Rule Of Reason ◽  
Sherman Act ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Antitrust Laws ◽  
The Common ◽  
Obiter Dictum ◽  
Restraint Of Trade

The “rule of reason” remains after almost forty years the most curious obiter dictum ever indulged in by the Supreme Court of the United States. Mistaken though it was in its basic assumptions, the rule nevertheless persists as the Court's standard for construing the Sherman Act. This is not to say, as some critics have said, that the rule has seriously hampered the Department of Justice in enforcing the antitrust laws. We have it on the authority of Thurman Arnold that without the rule die Sherman Act would be “unworkable … because every combination between two men in business is in some measure a restraint of trade.” The rule, he has said, “has the effect of preventing the antitrust laws from destroying the efficiency of diose combinations that are actually serving, instead of exploiting, the consumer.” The fact remains, however, that in adopting the rule the Court erred in at least two respects: first, in applying a test of reasonableness where in the early cases at least none was called for and, second, in basing that rule on a misunderstanding of the common law. For the first of its sins the Court has been scolded many times; for the second, it has received surprisingly litde criticism.

The Labor Clauses of the Clayton Act

1924 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 489-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alpheus T. Mason
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
New Era ◽  
Sherman Act ◽  
The Right ◽  
Trust Law ◽  
Restraint Of Trade

The Supreme Court's decision in the Danbury Hatters' case marked the beginning of a new era in trade-union activity, for laborers well realized that the Sherman act, as interpreted and applied by the court in that case, was a measure with which they would eventually have to reckon. The provision expressly declaring that equity courts may be resorted to in order to restrain violations of the act was an objection in itself, serious enough. But the statute held for laborers a much more vital concern: they also perceived that a strict construction of its provisions might even jeopardize the existence of the trade union itself. Laborers naturally felt very keenly even the suggestion that the Anti-Trust Act might be interpreted in such a manner as to deny to laborers the right to organize, and they undoubtedly believed, and not without a certain justification, that the dissolution of the trade union, as a combination in restraint of trade, would be the probable, if not the necessary, result of the court's decision in the Hatters' case.“Under the interpretation placed upon the Sherman Anti-Trust law by the courts,” Mr. Gompers averred, “it is within the province and within the power of any administration … to begin proceedings to dissolve any labor organization in the United States.” Labor unions exist only “at the suffrance of the Department of Justice.”

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