NOTES OF RECENT CASES

granting dealers, handling freight over the asso ciated lines, the privilege of ninety days from the date of their expense bills for receipts showing the amount of freight received over such line of shipping an equal amount of freight over the rebilling line at the rate adopted, is held to be not a true rebilling rate but a discrimination. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. (Combining to Effect Malicious Injury.) U. S. S. C. — The scope, as well as the constitutionality of a provision of the Wisconsin statutes, which declares that if any two or more persons combine for the purpose of wilfully or maliciously injuring another in his reputation, trade, business, or profession, by any means whatever, they shall be fined, is rather briefly, but • nevertheless satisfactorily treated in Aikens v. Wisconsin, 25 Supreme Court Reporter, 3. A newspaper had notified an increase of 25 per cent in its charges for advertising, whereupon the defendants, who were managers of other news papers formed a combination, and agreed that if any advertiser paid the increased rate demanded by the first-mentioned paper, he should not be permitted to advertise in any of the defendants' papers, except at a corresponding increase of rate, but that if he should refuse to pay the increased rate, he should be allowed to advertise in defend ants' papers at the rate previously charged. In an opinion supporting the constitutionality of the statute the court suggests that such a combina tion, followed by damage, would be actionable even in common law. and that in that case the motive with which the acts were performed would be material as affecting the question of justifica tion. Attention is directed to the fact that while the statute punishes combining for the purpose of wilfully or maliciously injuring another in his business, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin had intimated that a narrower interpretation would be adopted, and the further fact that in the present case it was alleged that the combination was with the intent of maliciously inflicting injury, so that the validity of the statute as rela ting to a malicious, as distinguished from a wil ful injury, was the only question involved. In this aspect, the statute is held not in conflict with the I4th amendment to the Federal Constitution. For the defendants it was contended that the means intended to be used in the particular com bination under consideration were simply the abstinence from making contracts, and that a man's right to so abstain could not be interfered with, and carried with it the right to communicate the intention to abstain to others, and to abstain in common with them, and it was argued • hat the statute must be held unconstitutional if construed

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as extending to these acts. "The fallacy of this argument," says Mr. Justice Holmes, "lies in the assumption that the statute stands no better than if directed against the pure nonfeasance of singly omitting to contract. The statute is directed against a series of acts and acts of several, the acts of combining with intent to do other acts. When the acts consist of making a com bination calculated to cause temporal damage, the power to punish such acts when done malic iously, cannot be denied because they are to be followed and worked out by conduct which might have been lawful if not preceded by such acts." It is the belief of this annotator that a solution of the trust problem may be found, by the applica tion to all situations where virtual monopoly pre vails, of the law governing the public services. This law requires that all shall be served without discrimination; while the predatory competition which is carried on by many of the present com binations, involves outright refusal to serve those who deal with a rival or at least discrimination against those who will not sell upon the terms dictated by the trust. Two decisions of the Su preme Court of the United States within the last two years strengthens the hope that the legisla tures will use some such law to curb the trusts, and that the courts will uphold the constitution ality of such statutes. In Montague v. Lowry, the Supreme Court held that if a combination of vendors of tiles refused to sell to a retailer they were liable for damages under the Federal AntiTrust Act. Now, in Aikens v. Wisconsin, it per mits the penalizing of a combination of newspaper proprietors for putting in force a discrimination designed to bring a rival to terms. Taken to gether these two cases open the way for more comprehensive legislation which may declare that in all business in which virtual monopoly is estab lished there must be adequate service to all with out discrimination against any. Bruce Wyman. This decision introduces into the criminal law as a test of the validity of conspiracy statutes, the doctrine of " want of justifiable cause " (malice), which has figured so conspicuously in actions for damages for interference with contracts and busi ness. The common law punished conspiracies to injure another in his trade or calling. People v. Melvin (1810), 2 Wheeler's Cr. Cas. 262; People v. Trequier (1823), i Wheeler's Cr. Cas. 142. In New York a statute making it a criminal conspir acy for two. or more persons to conspire to commit any act injurious to trade or commerce, was held to cover a combination to raise wages by fines and strikes. People v. Fisher (1835), 14 Wend.