Gibbs v. Buck

Me. Justice Black,

dissenting.

I believe the decree enjoining and suspending Florida’s law prohibiting monopolistic price 1 fixing should be reversed because

(1) No showing has been made that casts any doubt upon a State’s power to prohibit monopolistic price fixing,

(2) Complainants (appellees here) failed to sustain their burden of showing $3,000.00 in controversy, as. required by statute,

(3) The court below failed to require a bond or other conditions adequate to protect the people in Florida who might be injured by the injunction.

First. Do general allegations of unconstitutionality, 1 similarly general affidavits and general findings by the trial court show that the Florida statute against monopolistic price fixing is “novel, if not unique” 2 state legislation, and raise such “grave constitutional questions” that a federal court should suspend the statute to permit complainants to continue exacting monopoly tribute from the public until the court hears ^evidence?

The enjoined Attorney General and prosecuting attorneys of Florida do not have, and expressly disclaim any duty to enforce the statute against appellees unless they combine to fix monopolistic prices. Therefore, this injunction, cannot rest upon the alleged unconstitutionality of any provisions of the statute other than those prohibiting monopolistic price fixing. And allegations of the *80 bill attacking other provisions of the statute raise only-moot questions. If this record can be said to raise any “grave,” “novel,” or “unique” question at all, that question is whether a State has power to prohibit price fixing by monopolies in restraint of trade.

Tf the issue is not narrowed to this single point, approval is given to the enjoining of state officials from action which they have no duty to perform and have solemnly disclaimed both here and in the District Court. 3 In the absence of an interpretation by the Florida Supreme Court, to what more authoritative source or evidence may a federal court turn for the meaning of the statute, than to the decision of the highest state official charged with its enforcement? He has determined that, so far as he and the prosecuting attorneys under him are concerned, appellees may license their compositions as they please, may combine to detect and' punish in-fringers and may operate in Florida at will, provided only that they abandon monopolistic price fixing. Even as to the statutory prohibition against price fixing, all that is before us, a practice more desirable and more in keeping with our dual form of government, previous decisions, 4 and the trend of Congressional legislation, 5 would be to refrain from federal judicial interference until the state courts are presented with an opportunity to define the statutory duties of appellants. “And ..... the presumption is in all cases that the state courts will do what the constitution and laws of the United States require.” 6 *81 Judicially restraining these Florida officials from action which they declare they cannot and will not take, denies to Florida the traditional respect that has been accorded state officials by this Court. 7

Even according to the comparatively new judicial formula here applied, the only issue is whether “novel . . . unique” or “grave constitutional questions” are raised by the charge that these state officials will perform their sole duty under the Florida statute of prosecuting appellees for violations of the prohibitions against monopolistic price fixing. Paraphrasing this formula, the question here actually becomes: When complainants charge in a federal court of equity that a State has passed, and its officers are about to enforce, a law against monopolistic price fixing, is there so much doubt about the power of the State to prohibit monopolistic price fixing that operation of the law must be' enjoined and effect denied to it until evidence is heard by the Court?

Here, both the very bill upon which the injunction now approved was granted and affidavits of record establish beyond dispute appellees’ flagrant violation of the Florida law by combining to fix prices. This combination apparently includes practically all (probably 95%) American and foreign copyright owners controlling rendi *82 tion of copyrighted music for profit in the United States. Not only does this combination fix prices through a self-perpetuating board of twenty-four directors, but its power over the business of musical rendition is so great that it can refuse to sell rights to single compositions, and can, and does, require purchasers to take, at a monopo-listically fixed annual fee, the entire repertory of all numbers controlled by the combination. And these fees are not the same for like purchasers even in the same locality. Evidence shows that competing radio stations in the same city, operating on the same power and serving the same audience, are charged widely variant fees for identical performance rights, not because of competition, but by the exercise of monopoly power. Since it appears that music is an essential part of public entertainment for profit, radio stations or other businesses arbitrarily compelled to pay discriminatory fees are faced with price fixing practices that could destroy them, because the Society has a monopoly of practically all — if not completely all — available music. When consideration is also given to the fact that an arbitrarily fixed lower rate is granted to a favored station itself controlled by another instrument of public communication — a newspaper — the ultimate possibilities for control of the channels of public communication and information are apparent.

We have here a price fixing combination that actually wields the power of life and death over every business in Florida, and elsewhere, dependent upon copyrighted musical compositions for existence. Such a monopolistic combination’s power to fix prices is the power to destroy. Should a court of equity grant .this combination the privilege of violating a state anti-monopoly law? 8 Does a *83 state'law prohibiting such a combination present “grave constitutional questions”?

It is my position that a state law prohibiting monopolistic price fixing in restraint of. trade is not “novel” and “unique” and raises no “grave constitutional questions.” The constitutional-right of the States to pass laws against monopolies should now be beyond possibility of controversy. “That state legislatures have the right ... to prevent unlawful combinations to prevent competition and in restraint of trade, and to prohibit and punish monopolies, is not open to question,” 9 and few have challenged the power of state legislatures to ordain that “competition not combination, should be the law of trade.” 10 Surely, thére is presently no basis to doubt this power and to assert that its exercise raises “grave constitutional questions.” As recently as 1937, this Court held that Puerto Rico, with legislative powers not equal to, but “nearly as extensive as those exercised by any state legislature,” could prohibit monopolistic price fixing as one of the “rightful subjects of legislation” upon which legislatures act. 11

If the States have somehow lost their historic power to prohibit monopolistic price fixing combinations before *84 presentation of evidence to a federal court, at what point in .our history and in what manner did they lose it? The people have not exercised their exclusive authority, by Constitutional amendment, to strip the States of their power over price fixing combinations and thus raise monopoly above the traditional power of legislative bodies.

It was expressly conceded at the bar that Florida had the Constitutional power to prohibit price fixing combinations unless the copyright laws limited this power. And, since argument of the present case, a decision rendered by us February 13, this year, made clear the principle that the copyright laws grant no immunity to copyright owners from statutes prohibiting monopolistic practices and agreements. We there declared that “An agreement illegal [by statute] because it suppresses competition is not any less so because the competitive article is copyrighted.” 12

“Due process” has been judicially endowed with great elasticity in relation to property rights, but it is inconceivable that it would afford refuge for monopolies deemed undesirable by the people’s representatives. When a legislature as a matter of public policy determines to prohibit monopolistic combinations, we cannot, under any doctrine of “due process,” rightfully “review their economics or their facts.” 13 And, although “due process” is invoked, can evidence either add to or take from the legislative power to permit, regulate or prohibit monopolies in the public interest?

Several of the general allegations in the bill are relied upon to justify suspension of the Florida statute until evidence is heard by a court. It is said the court should hear evidence because the “bill sets out that the exercise of rights granted by the Federal Copyright Act to control *85 the performance of compositions for profit is prohibited by the statute . . .” But what evidence can the court hear that will assist it in comparing the statute with the copyright laws? The Florida statute does not even purport to prohibit the. “performance of compositions for profit,” and the enjoined officials have neither threatened, nor do they intend, to prohibit such performance. It is said the bill alleges “that éxisting contracts are impaired” by the statute. But no contracts can be affected unless involving prohibited monopolistic price fixing. That the Florida law prohibits the continuation and execution of monopoly practices in pursuance of price fixing agreements made before the law was passed, can be no basis for constitutional objection. 14

It is said the bill alleges “property taken without compensation.” If the statute, of itself, takes property, (and no charge of unconstitutional application of the statute is made) is evidence required 'to show the manner of the taking? It is said the bill alleges that the statute violates “equal protection.” But the sole thing threatened is prosecution of an admitted price fixing combination— comprised of practically all the musical copyright owners and publishers in the nation. “. . . if an evil [of monopoly] is-specially experienced in a particular branch of business, the Constitution embodies no prohibition of laws confined to the evil, or doctrinaire requirement that they should be couched in all embracing terms. It does not forbid the cautious advance, step by step, and the distrust of generalities which sometimes have been the weakness, but often the strength, of English legislation.” 15 It is said a drastic penalty is provided for prac *86 ticing price fixing. What evidence will serve to enlighten the Court on the statutory penalty? That penalty is set out clearly in the statute. If it invalidates the statute, that determination should be made how.

The present case illustrates how the recently fashioned judicial formula under which state laws must be enjoined if “grave constitutional questions” are presented in a complaint, actually results in an automatic judicial suspension of state statutes upon any general complaint to a federal court. The apparently inevitable operation of this formula runs counter to the Tenth Amendment intended to preserve the control of the States over their own local legislation, and opens the door to further evasions of the Eleventh Amendment protecting the States from suits in federal courts. 16 A lower federal court’s refusal in its “discretion” to suspend a state statute was recently reversed because- “grave constitutional questions” — requiring evidence — were deemed raised by charges that the statute by requiring citrus fruit cans to be truthfully labeled violated the Constitution. 17 And here, where the District Court enjoined a state law in its “discretion,” the injunction is sustained by a holding that evidence should be heard because “grave constitutional questions” are involved. However the lower court’s “discretion” may be exercised, the formula apparently achieves but one result — state statutes are suspended.

Careful scrutiny of appellees’ bill for injunction reveals no allegations indicating that Florida’s power to prohibit monopolistic price fixing would, even under the formula applied, be altered by proof of any “particular economic facts . . . which are . . . properly the sub *87 ject of evidence and of findings.' 18 True, the bill alleges that the statute of Florida and similar legislation enacted by other States were “sponsored by' an organized group ... for their own selfish aggrandizement . . . without an adequate hearing being afforded to complainants and others similarly situated,” and that “in truth and in fact, [the statute] was enacted not in the public interest . . Appellees also allege that “unless the enforcement of this State statute is restrained . . . other States, in addition to Florida, Montana, Washington, Nebraska and Tennessee, may enact similar statutes . . . all of which would work undue hardship on complainants and would violate the spirit of the Constitution . . .” These are some of the strongest — if not the strongest — of the bill’s allegations deemed to raise “grave constitutional questions.” Is the temporary injunction approved so that the federal court in Florida may hear evidence on what constitutes the public interest of Florida? Shall the court hear evidence to determine whether or not “unless the enforcement of this statute is restrained” other States, “in addition to Florida,” may similarly prohibit appellees’ monopoly?

It is difficult to perceive how in the future — under this formula — any state law, directly or indirectly affecting property, can become effective until injunction proceedings have dragged their weary way through federal courts. All state statutes might hereafter well substitute for the expression “to take effect within” a certain period of time, the words “to take effect after the Federal courts have heard evidence to determine” their reasonableness (wisdom). And the formula likewise fits Congressional enactments. Had the pronouncement of this formula not been the culmination of gradual judicial advances, it would have been everywhere recognized as a *88 revolutionary departure from our constitutional form of government, under which the wisdom of legislation, within the field of legislative action, was left to the judgment of elected representatives of the people.

Florida can find little comfort in the admonition that “Ordinarily it would be expected that where a temporary injunction is considered necessary ... a final order would follow with all convenient speed.” This law has now already been suspended for a year, and experience demonstrates that injunctive suspension of state laws and state action can hang in the courts for many years before receiving final disposition. 19

Second. Jurisdictional Amount.

These eleven appellees alleged in their bill for injunction that they sued on behalf of themselves and the more than 1,000 other (American) members of the Society. No determination is made here “that for any member, who is a party, the matter in controversy is of the value of the jurisdictional amount” — $3,000. However, while appellees are not aided in establishing the jurisdictional amount by the “allegation that [they] . : . sued on behalf of others similarly situated,” 20 the court nevertheless holds that the jurisdictional amount is in controversy in “the value of the aggregate rights of all members” (including the more than 1,000 who have not appeared in person) to combine and fix prices in Florida.

“Assuming that such a case as this may be called a class action, and . . . could be maintained as such . . . yet that it may be properly a class action does not affect the rule against aggregation [of claims for making up *89 the jurisdictional amount], because [such aggregation] ... is necessarily only applicable to those class actions in which several claimants to a fund are joined as plaintiffs asserting common and undivided rights therein.” 21 Appellees assert no common and undivided rights in any fund 22 or property; 23 “the amount payable to each [by the Society] depends upon hfe contract alone.” 24 Neither does appellees’ bill seek, as would the traditional class or representative bill in equity, to protect group rights all claimed under and traceable to a single decree, 25 or rights “which"'. . . [no one plaintiff] can enforce in .the absence of the” others because derived from a single security instrument. 26 In this proceeding, all that members of the Society have in common is their alleged right to violate with impunity the Florida statute against price fixing. Unless opposition to and violation of the statute can be their bond of unity, appellees have “séparate and distinct demands . . . [united] for convenience and économy ■ in a single suit, [and] it is essential that the demand of each be of the requisite jurisdictional amount.” 27

Permissible joinder of many plaintiffs as a matter of convenience and economy is not a means of enlarging the jurisdiction of the District Court. Rule 38, under which this class or representative suit was brought, did *90 not, in fact could not, extend that jurisdiction which depends solely upon Acts of Congress. 28

A common desire to disregard a state law cannot serve as a common and undivided interest for purposes of federal jurisdiction; 29 otherwise, all who oppose such a law can aggregate the values of their alleged individual rights so as to disregard the law, in order that they may escape the courts of a State and.bring its law before a federal court. And the fact that a state law inflicts pecuniary loss upon members of a non-profit association because of their membership does not permit aggregation of the members’ pecuniary interests as a basis for attack upon the law in a federal court by some members “on behalf and with the authority of all.” 30 Here, the individual members have made no showing of what they as individuals have at stake — or of what all the members as a class stand to lose by virtue of the Florida law.

The enjoined state officials have only the duty to prosecute appellees if they continue to fix prices (i. e., to issue licenses) through monopolistic combinations, and these' officials have expressly disavowed any intention to do more. 31 Appellees are left free to form such combinations as they please in Florida for the purpose of protecting against copyright infringements. They are here deprived by the Florida statute only of the right to com *91 bine to fix prices, and the value of that right must determine the amount in controversy 32 That right was the object which appellees’ bill for injunction sought to protect from allegedly unconstitutional interference. 33 Yet, there is no evidence at all in the record from which even an inference can be drawn as to the amount, if any, individual appellees or other members might lose in Florida by selling or licensing their copyrighted articles individually (which the law permits) instead of fixing prices by monopolistic combination (which the law prohibits). No showing was made that appellees ever have made, or ever will make any profit from the operations of the Society in Florida. As stated by the majority opinion, the record discloses that the business of the Society in the entire'United States and sixteen foreign countries is a profitable one. But we cannot assume from this that its Florida operations are as a unit profitable. In fact, the record shows only that the entire Society had sixty thousand dollars worth of contracts in Florida in 1936. We are not told what ratable share of this sixty thousand dollars would come to any individual in the division of the entire amount among the forty-five thousand odd members affiliated with the Society (in America and abroad). Each individual member’s gross income from Florida might be less than $1.50 per year.

• The loss of a right to an annual gross income of $1.50 cannot amount to the loss of a right valued at ten thousand dollars — as appellees allege — on' the theory that it would cost ten thousand dollars to collect the $1.50 income individually. And it is, of course, possible that if the Society in fact has no net income from Florida but operates there at a loss, each member’s ratable share of *92 income from the Society will actually be increased when the unprofitable Florida operations cease because of the statute. Measuring the amount in controversy on the above theory, jurisdiction might be obtained by a federal court to enforce rights of a value far less than the jurisdictional $3,000 required by Congress. For illustration, a statute might prohibit parking of automobiles on certain city streets; an automobile owner assailing the law might be admitted to the jurisdiction of the federal court by alleging that it would cost him more than three thousand dollars to purchase a parking lot in which to park off the streets of the prohibited area. He would thus “comply” with the statute and abandon the streets in obedience to it. 34 I do not believe that jurisdiction of a federal court can be rested .on measurements of the imagined cost of what a complainant conceivably could but certainly would never do as an alternative to action forbidden by statute.

The statutory monetary standard is precise and the amount in controversy therefore cannot be conjectural. “It is impossible to foresee into what mazes of speculation and conjecture we may not be led by a departure from the simplicity of the statutory provision.

“Accordingly this Court has uniformly been strict to adhere to and enforce it.” 35

*93 Without proof of the amount each appellee or member has in issue, how can the .“aggregate amount” be fixed at any figure?

Rigid enforcement of the jurisdictional requirement will limit the interference of federal courts in state legislation and will accord with the policy of Congress in narrowing the jurisdiction of federal courts by successive increases in the jurisdictional amount. 36 'The policy of the statute calls for its strict construction.” 37 Since no individual complainant has established that he has the statutory jurisdictional amount in controversy, to rest jurisdiction of a federal court on no more than the unified desire of many complainants to violate a state statute prohibiting monopolistic price fixing, does constitute a “novel, if not unique,” and “grave” judicial departure from the jurisdictional requirement fixed by Congress.

Third. The otherwise complete suspension of Florida’s law was limited only by the condition that appellees make bond, of five thousand dollars payable to the Attorney General of Florida and the District Attorneys of the State. Manifestly, these officials have no individual interest in the monopoly prohibited by the Florida law. The major injuries accruing from the suspension of the law will not be inflicted upon them, but upon the people of Florida who are required to pay monopoly prices while the law remains enjoined. Thus, while the Jaw is suspended, these non-resident appellees can carry on a monopolistic business in Florida contrary to its prohibitions, and the people of Florida who must pay monopoly prices are granted no protection. We have recently declared the governing principle that “it is the. duty of a court of equity granting injunctive relief to do so upon conditions that will protect all — including the public — whose inter *94 ests the injunction may affect.” 38 The injunction here was not granted upon conditions that would protect the interests of all who might be affected by it. It neither ordered the monopoly tribute exacted by appellees to be paid into court during suspension of the Florida statute, nor required a bond for the benefit of, and adequate to indemnify those who must pay this tribute until the court permits the statute to go into effect.

. Nevertheless, this Court now refuses to correct the grossly unjust failure to protect those who may suffer irreparable injury from the suspension of the Florida law. on the ground that “No objection appears as to the adequacy of the bond of the other terms of the injunction. These remain under the control of the lower court.” However, the lower court has already exercised its control resulting in manifestly injurious error apparent on the record. 39 And as “upon this appeal in equity the whole case is before us, we can render such decree as under all the circumstances may be proper.” 40 Litigation is not a game in which justice can be awarded only to the alert and fastidious objector, particularly when — as here — a court suspends statutory rights of members of the public who, not being in court, have no opportunity to object. The injustice to the public apparent on this record violates the rudimentary principles of equity and fair play. We should neither condone nor permit it.

They who attack the constitutionality of a law, obtain its judicial suspension, and then continue to violate its *95 ■terms, should not benefit' by the suspension, in the event the law -is later held constitutional. Otherwise, a judicially granted period of immunity will reward litigants who unsuccessfully assail the constitutionality "of legislation. Seemingly, the time has arrived when despite our constitutional system- of government no state law can become effective until a federal court hears evidence on its constitutionality. The courts — responsible for this fundamental change — should at least protect citizens of an enacting State from disobedience to a state law permitted by an erroneous or improvident interlocutory injunction.

The interlocutory inj unction/ should be vacated.

Borden’s Co. v. Baldwin, supra, 203.

Cf., Carroll v. Greenwich Insurance Co., 199 U. S. 401, 412 .

Gilchrist v. Interborough Co., 279 U. S. 159, 207 ; Fenner v. Boykin, 271 U. S. 240, 243-4 ; cf., Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 177 U. S. 28, 43 ; and see Clark, Brandéis, JJ., dissenting, Cincinnati v. Cincinnati & H. Traction Co., 245 U. S. 446, 461 .

28 U. S. C. 41; c. 726, 50 Stat. 738 , 48 Stat. 775 , 47 Stat. 70 , 43 Stat. 938 , 36 Stat. 1162 , amended 37 Stat. 1013 .

Defiance Water Co, v. Defiance, 191 U. S. 184, 194 .

See Spielman Motor Co. v. Dodge, 295 U. S. 89, 96 ; Cincinnati v. Cincinnati & H. Traction Co., supra, 454, 455; Virginia v. West Virginia, 231 U. S. 89, 91 ; cf. Des Moines v. City Ry. Co., 214 U. S. 179, 184 . This injunction makes strikingly pertinent the question of Justice Harlan, dissenting, in Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123, 179 (1908): “If the Federal court could thus prohibit the law officer of the State from representing it in a suit brought in the state court, why might not the bill in the Federal court be so amended that that court could reach all the district attorneys in Minnesota and forbid them from bringing to the attention of grand juries and the state courts violations of the state act . . .?” ' His apprehensive prophecy has more than come true in the present case.

Cf., Continental Wall Paper Co. v Voight & Sons Co., 212 U. S. 227, 262 , affirming 148 F. 939 ; Gibbs v. Baltimore Gas Co., 130 U. S. 396, 412 . McConnell v. Camors-McConnell Co., 152 F. 321 ; Pacific *83 Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. Western Union Tel. Co., 50 F. 493 ; American Biscuit & Mfg. Co. v. Klotz, 44 F. 721 ; 1 Pom. Equity Juris. (3rd Ed.) § 402.

Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas (No. 1), 212 U. S. 86, 107 . “There is nothing in the Constitution of the United States which precludes a State from adopting and enforcing [statutes which secure competition and preclude combinations which tend to defeat it] . . . To so decide would be stepping backwards.” International Harvester Co. v. Missouri, 234 U. S. 199, 209 . See, Atlantic & Pac. Tea Co. v. Grosjean, 301 U. S. 412, 425-6 ; Nebbia v. New York, 291 U. S 502, 529; Rast v. Van Deman & Lewis Co., 240 U. S. 342, 366-7 .

National Cotton Oil Co. v. Texas, 197 U. S. 115, 129 ; Carroll v. Greenwich Ins. Co., supra, 411.

Puerto Rico v. Shell Co., 302 U. S. 253, 260, 261 .

Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. United States, 306 U. S. 208, 230 .

Central Lumber Co. v. South Dakota, 226 U. S. 157, 161 .

Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas (No. 1), supra, 108.

Carroll v. Greenwich Ins. Co., supra, 411; Central Lumber Co. v. South Dakota, supra,. 160 . “A legislature may hit at an abuse which it has found, even though it has failed to strike at another.” United States v. Carotene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144 , 151.

Cf. Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 , Harlan, J., dissenting, 168-204; and see Fitts v. McGhee, 172 U. S. 516, 528, 530 ; In re Ayers, 123 U. S. 443, 496, 497, 505 .

Polk Co. v. Glover, 305 U. S. 5 .

Borden’s Co. v. Baldwin, supra, at 210.

See dissent, McCart v. Indianapolis Water Co., 302 U. S. 419, 435 , and note.

Lion Bonding Co. v. Karatz, 262 U. S. 77, 86 .

Eberhard v. Northwestern Mutual Life Ins. Co., 241 F. 353, 356 , referred to with apparent approval in Lion Bonding Co. v. Karatz, supra.

Smith v. Swormstedt, 16 How. 288 .

Beatty v. Kurtz, 2 Pet. 566 .

Eberhard case, supra, 356.

Shields v. Thomas, 17 How. 3 , but see Chapman v. Handley, 151 U. S. 443 .

Troy Bank v. Whitehead & Co., 222 U. S. 39, 41 .

Id. 40 .

Alaska Packers Assn. v. Pillsbury, 301 U. S. 174, 177 ; Christopher v. Brusselback, 302 U. S. 500, 505 ; see, KVOS, Inc. v. Associated Press, 299 U. S. 269, 279 .

Pope v. Blanton, 10 F. Supp. 15, 18 , dismissed per curiam for lack of requisite jurisdictional amount in controversy, 299 U. S. 521 ; Gavica v. Donaugh, 93 F. 2d 173 .

Rogers v. Hennepin County, 239 U. S. 621 . The complaint appears in the original records of this Court, No. 411, Oct. Term 1915. Cf., Robbins v. Western Auto Ins. Co., 4 F. 2d 249 , cert. den., 268 U. S. 698 ; Woods v. Thompson, 14 F. 2d 951 , and Illinois Bankers’ Life Assn. v. Parris, 21 F. 2d 1014 , cert. den., 276 U. S. 621 .

Cf., Carroll v. Greenwich Ins. Co., supra, 412.

Scott v. Donald, 165 U. S. 107, 114, 115 .

Cf., Glenwood Light & W. Co. v. Mutual Light Co., 239 U. S. 121, 125, 126 ; KVOS, Inc. v. Associated Press, 299 U. S. 269, 277 .

“Cost of compliance” with an assailed legislative act may be considered the measure of the amount in controversy when a right of complainant is regulated, or where he is required to take affirmative action.. Cf., Kroger Grocery Co. v. Lutz, 299 U. S. 300, 301 ; McNutt v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., 298 U. S. 178, 181 . But appellees have not been required to take any affirmative steps, nor are they permitted to fix prices on condition that they “comply” with regulations. The fixing of prices through combinations has been prohibited. Obviously, appellees cannot be prohibited from doing that which they may also do by “complying” with the statute.

Elgin v. Marshall, 106 U. S. 578, 581 .

See Healy v. Ratta, 292 U. S. 263, 270 .

Id.

Inland Steel Co. v. United States, 306 U. S. 153, 157 .

See, Lamb v. Cramer, 285 U. S. 217, 222 ; United States v. Tennessee & Coosa R. Co., 176 U. S. 242, 256 ; Revised Rules of the Supreme Court of the United States, 27, paragraph 6; cf., Mahler v. Eby, 264 U. S. 32, 45 .

United States v. Rio Grande Irrigation Co., 184 U. S. 416, 423 ; Cincinnati v. Cincinnati & H. Traction. Co., supra, 454; Ridings v. Johnson, 128 U. S. 212, 218 ; cf., Patterson v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 600, 607 .