George Van Camp & Sons Co. v. American Can Co.

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This suit was brought in the Federal District Court for the District of Indiana to enjoin violations of § 2 of'the Clayton Act, c. 323, 38 Stat. 730 . U. S. Code, Title 15, § 13. From a decree dismissing the bill for want of equity, an appeal was taken to the court below. Under § 239 of the Judicial Code as amended (U. S. Code, Title 28, § 346), that court has certified the following questions concerning which instructions are desired for' the proper disposition of the cause:

“Question 1. Does section 2'of the ‘Clayton Act’ (United States Code, Title 15, Section 13) have application to cases of price discrimination, the effect of. which may be to substantially lessen competition, or tend to create a monopoly, not in the line of commerce wherein

“ Question 2. Where one who makes an article and sells it, interstate, to persons engaged, interstate, in a line of commerce different from that of the maker, discriminates in price between such buyers (said discrimination not being made on account of differences in the grade, quality or quantity of the commodity sold, nor being made as only due allowance for the difference in the cost of selling or transportation, nor being made in good faith to meet competition) and the effect of such discrimination may be to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in the line of commerce wherein the buyers are engaged, does the maker and seller of the article, making such price discrimination, transgress section 2 of the ‘ Clayton Act ’ (United States Code, Title 15, Section 13)?”'

The relevant facts upon which the questions are based' are set forth as follows:

“ The bill’ charges that appellant, George Van Camp i& Sons Company, is engaged, interstate, in the business 'of packing and selling food products in tin cans, and that appellee’Van Camp Packing Company is engaged in the same business, and is a competitor of appellant; and that appellee American Can Company manufactures, in very great quantities, and sells, interstate, to food packers, tin cans used in the food packing industry, and owns the-monopoly for certain machines which are necessary for sealing the .cans of its manufacture, and that it sells such cans in large quantities to appellant and to appellee Van Camp Packing Company, and leases to them its machines for sealing these cans;

“ That the American Can Company is unlawfully discriminating between different purchasers of its commodities, in that the price át which it offered and offers and sold

“ That the effect of such discrimination is to substantially lessen competition, and tends to create a monopoly in the line of interstate commerce, in which the appellant, George Van Camp & Sons Company, and the appellee Van-' Camp Packing Company are both engaged, namely, the packing and selling of food products in tin cans.

“ There is no allegation in the bill that the discriminations complained of tended to create a monopoly or substantially lessen competition in the line of commerce in which the appellee American Can Company is engaged.

“ On separate motions of the several appellees on the ground that said section 2 of the ‘ Clayton Act ’ is addressed only to discriminations in price the effect of which may be to substantially lessen competition, or tend to create a monopoly in the business in which the- discriminator is engaged, the District Court dismissed the bill for

These facts bring the case within the terms of the statute, unless the words “ in any line of commerce ” are to be given a narrower meaning than a literal reading of them conveys. The phrase is comprehensive and means that if the forbidden effect or tendency is produced in one out of all the various lines of commerce, the words “ in any line of commerce ” literally are satisfied. ■ The contention is that the words must be confined to the particular line of commerce in which the discriminator is engaged, and that they do not include a different line of commerce in which purchasers from the discriminator are engaged in competition with one another. In support of this contention, we are asked to consider reports of Congressional committees, and other familiar aids to statutory construction. But the general rule that “the province of construction lies wholly within the domain of ambiguity,” Hamilton v. Rathbone, 175 U. S. 414 , 419, 421, is too firmly established by-the numerous decisions of this Court either to require or permit us to do so.. The words being clear, they are decisive. There is nothing to construe. To search elsewhere for a meaning either beyond or short of that which they disclose is to invite the danger, in the one case, of converting what was meant to be open and precise, into a concealed trap for the unsuspecting, or, in the .other, of relieving from the grasp of-the statute some whom the legislature definitely meant to include. Decisions of this Court, where the letter of the statute was not deemed controlling and the legislative intent was determined by a consideration of circumstances

We have not failed carefully to consider Mennen Co. v. Federal Trade Comm’n, 288 Fed. 774 , (followed in National Biscuit Co. v. Federal Trade Comm’n, 299 Fed. 733 ), cited as contrary to the conclusion we have reached. The decision iii that case was based upon the premise that the statute was ambiguous and required the aid of committee reports, etc., to determine its meaning, a premise which we have rejected as unsound.

Both questions submitted are answered in the affirmative.

Question No. 1, Yes.

Question No. 2, Yes.