# American Tobacco Co. v. United States

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 10, 1946 · 328 U.S. 781

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9419870

## Case

- **Full name:** AMERICAN TOBACCO CO. Et Al. v. UNITED STATES
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 10, 1946
- **Citations:** 328 U.S. 781; 66 S. Ct. 1125; 90 L. Ed. 1575; 1946 U.S. LEXIS 3066
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Rutledge
- **Judges:** Burton, Frankfurter, Rutledge, Reed, Jackson
- **Cited by:** 1,049 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9419870

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding a single conspiracy to fix prices constituted “separate statutory offenses, one a conspiracy in restraint of trade that may stop short of monopoly, and the other a conspiracy to monopolize that may not be content with restraint short of monopoly”
- explaining, in the context of a § 2 conspiracy to monopolize claim, that “a conspiracy to commit a crime is a different offense from the crime that is the object of the conspiracy” (internal quotation marks omitted)
- stating that “over two-thirds of the entire domestic field of cigarettes, and [ ] over 80% of the field of comparable cigarettes” constituted a “substantial monopoly”
- stating that a conspiracy to increase prices of cheaper tobacco and thereby drive out manufacturers of lower- priced cigarettes violated § 2 of the Sherman Act

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Rutledge,
concurring.
I concur in the Court’s opinion and judgment. In doing so, however, I express no judgment concerning other questions determined on the appeal to the Circuit Court of Appeals, 147 F. 2d 93 , and presented in the application for certiorari or the later petition for rehearing and enlargement of the scope of review here, including the question whether upon the particular facts the law has been applied in such a manner as to bring about, in substantial effect, multiple punishment for the same offense. Cf. Pinkerton v. United States, ante, pp. 640, 648, dissenting opinion.
*816 That question has been discussed in the briefs and the argument, for its bearing upon the disposition of the single question which certiorari was granted to review, namely, “whether actual exclusion of competitors is necessary to the crime of monopolization under § 2 of the Sherman Act.” 324 U. S. 836 . On this issue I have no doubt of the correctness of the Court's conclusion that the offense of monopolization is complete when power is acquired to exclude competitors and therefore that actual exclusion need not be shown, for the reasons set forth in the opinion. Whether, in this view, multiple punishment may arise upon application of the law to particular facts under counts charging conspiracy in restraint of trade, monopolization, and conspiracy to monopolize presents a different question which can be determined only by examination of the manner in which the particular application has been made. Since, in view of the limited character of our action in granting certiorari, neither the issue of multiple punishment nor the facts of record upon which it arises are before us for review, it would be inappropriate to express opinion on that question.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9419870. Public record. Not legal advice.