United States v. Singer Manufacturing Company/Dissent Harlan

by John Marshall Harlan II

United States Supreme Court

374 U.S. 174

United States  v.  Singer Manufacturing Company

 Argued: April 25 and 29, 1963. --- Decided: June 17, 1963

Mr. Justice HARLAN, dissenting.

Although the Court reverses this case on the ground that the District Court proceeded on erroneous legal premises, I do not believe its opinion can serve to obscure the fact that what the majority has really done is overturn the lower court's findings of fact.

A mere reading of the exhaustive opinion below will show that the District Court in dismissing the Government's case did not, as this Court now holds, fail to recognize that a concerted use by Singer and Gegauf of their patents in pursuit of a common purpose to thwart Japanese competition would violate the Sherman Act. Rather the District Court found that such a violation had not been made out.

The basic predicate for this Court's attributing to the District Court the following of an erroneous legal standard is the 'direct conflict' which the majority sees between the lower court's finding that Singer's underlying, 'dominant and sole purpose' in entering into the Gegauf license agreement 'was to settle the conflict' between the Harris and the Gegauf patents and the finding that Singer's 'secondary' purpose was its desire to obtain 'protection against the Japanese machines' which might be made under the Gegauf patent (ante, p. 190). This is indeed a slender reed for the Court's position. For one is left at a loss to understand how the two findings can be deemed inconsistent. Obviously Singer wanted to settle the 'priority' issue with Gegauf in order to have solid patent protection against all comers particularly of course the Japanese, whose ability to manufacture these popular machines in a cheap labor market put them in the forefront of possible infringers. Thus it seems to me that the findings as to Singer's 'dominant' and 'secondary' purposes are entirely consistent, and that their supposed inconsistency can be made to rest on nothing more substantial than a play on the word 'sole' in the basic finding. The further circumstance that it was only Singer's 'secondary' purpose that was disclosed to Gegauf goes not to the question of 'consistency' but rather to the sufficiency of the lower court's ultimate finding that no illegal concert of action had been shown between Singer and Gegauf.

Nor does anything to which the Court points in the Gegauf patent assignment and Tariff Commission episodes (ante, pp. 191 196) lend support to this transparent effort to ground reversal on a question of law so as to escape the necessity of coming to grips with the only true issue in this case: are the District Court's findings of fact-which if accepted would put an end to the Government's case-'clearly erroneous'? Again the various bits and pieces which the Court has called from this lengthy record go not to the consistency but to the sufficiency of the findings.

In my opinion the District Court's findings are invulnerable to attack under Rule 52(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The mere fact that one or more of the members of this Court might have made opposite findings if sitting at nisi prius does not of course serve to justify reversal of a District Court's findings under the 'clearly erroneous' rule. United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 338 U.S. 338, 341-342, 70 S.Ct. 177, 179-180, 94 L.Ed. 150.

In conclusion, it is gratifying to observe the Court's recognition of the fact that the requirement of direct review in cases like this has become an anachronism in light of the modern work load of this Court. Ante, note 1; see also the separate opinion of this writer in Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U.S. 294, 357, 364-365, 82 S.Ct. 1502, 1542, 1546, 1547, 8 L.Ed.2d 510. The final outcome of this case might indeed have been different had this Court had 'the valuable assistance of the Courts of Appeals' (ante, note 1).

I would affirm the judgment of the District Court.

Notes