Poller v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc./Dissent Harlan

by John Marshall Harlan II

United States Supreme Court

368 U.S. 464

Poller  v.  Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc.

 Argued: Nov. 13 and 14, 1961. --- Decided: Feb 19, 1962

Mr. Justice HARLAN, with whom Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, Mr. Justice WHITTAKER and Mr. Justice STEWART join, dissenting.

As I see it, this is one of those cases, not unfamiliar in treble-damage litigation, where injury resulting from normal business hazards is sought to be made redressable by casting the affair in antitrust terms. I think that the antitrust laws do not fit this case, and that the courts below were quite correct in holding that the respondents were entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

The litigation arises out of CBS' cancellation of an affiliation arrangement with WCAN, a UHF television broadcasting station in Milwaukee, owned by Midwest Broadcasting Company of whose property Poller is assignee. CBS maintains that such cancellation was but the legitimate exercise of a contractual right. Poller says that it was part of a conspiracy to restrain and monopolize trade in the television broadcasting business, violative of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. Suing under § 4 of the Clayton Act, ^[1] Poller seeks to recover as damages the trebled fair value of the WCAN station and equipment, whose sale to CBS at a distress price he claims was forced upon him in consequence of CBS' cancellation of the WCAN affiliation contract.

Poller asserts that CBS, joined by others as conspirators, wanted to put him out of business as the first step in a grand design to destroy UHF broadcasting in Milwaukee, if not indeed throughout the United States. It is said that CBS looked with disfavor upon the growth of UHF broadcasting, being itself already heavily committed to VHF. As subsidiary steps towards the effectuation of this plan, it is charged that CBS chilled prospective purchasers of WCAN; acquired the only then competing UHF station in Milwaukee, WOKY; and later closed that station down. ^[2] CBS' co-conspirators are said to have been CBS-Television, an unincorporated division of CBS; certain officers of CBS; Bartell, the then owner of WOKY; and Holt, a management consultant, who at CBS' behest obtained from Bartell an option to purchase WOKY.

I assume that Poller would be entitled to proceed to trial if the record before the District Court had left open a genuine question of fact as to whether the alleged conspiracy had as its object the elimination of all UHF stations in the Milwaukee area, or even if it appeared that petitioner might prove that the respondents entered upon this course in order to reduce the number of UHF stations in Milwaukee from two to one, which was to be owned outright by CBS. ^[3] But, for reasons given below, I think that the depositions and affidavits which were before the District Court disclosed to a practical certainty that such proof could not be made.

What did remain open to proof was an alleged arrangement among CBS, its television division, and its officers and agents whereby CBS canceled an affiliation with one UHF station and purchased the facilities of a competing station. Even if somewhere among those sought to be drawn into petitioner's net there can be found two independent actors whose meeting of minds would satisfy the usual conspiracy requirement of 'plurality of parties,' ^[4] their agreement to carry out that design would not, in my view, of itself offend anything proscribed by §§ 1 or 2 of the Sherman Act.

In passing on the motion for summary judgment, the District Court had before it more than the four affidavits of interested parties to which the Court's opinion seems especially to refer (ante, 368 U.S., pp. 468, 473, 82 S.Ct., pp. 488, 491). In the record was the testimony of four key witnesses taken by pretrial depositions. Petitioner's counsel had examined Frank Stanton, President of CBS; Richard Salant, a Vice-President of CBS; and Thad Holt, who acted for CBS in procuring the option on the Bartell station. ^[5] Petitioner's testimony was also in the record in the form of a deposition taken by respondents' counsel, and two affidavits submitted in opposition to the motion for summary judgment. In addition, the record contained the respondents' answers to written interrogatories put by the petitioner. It is in light of this far from meager pretrial discovery that the appropriateness of summary judgment must be evaluated.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c) authorizes a District Court to enter summary judgment

'if the pleadings, depositions, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.'

In so providing, the draftsmen of the Rule of course did not intend to cut off a litigant's right to a trial before the appropriate fact-finder if triable issues remained unresolved after the pleadings were closed and pretrial discovery had. Sartor v. Arkansas Natural Gas Corp., 321 U.S. 620, 627, 64 S.Ct. 724, 728, 88 L.Ed. 967; Fountain v. Filson, 336 U.S. 681, 69 S.Ct. 754, 93 L.Ed. 971. On the other hand, it is equally clear that their purpose was to obviate trials which would serve no useful purpose. In administering the Rule, the availability of pretrial discovery, as well as matter actually discovered, is a factor to be considered in determining whether a 'genuine issue as to any material fact' is open. E.g., Schneider v. McKesson & Robbins, Inc., 2 Cir., 254 F.2d 827, 831. Further, the Rule does not indicate that it is to be used any more 'sparingly' in antitrust litigation (ante, 368 U.S., p. 473, 82 S.Ct., p. 491) than in other kinds of litigation, or that its employment in antitrust cases is subject to more stringent criteria than in others. On the contrary, without reflecting in any way upon the good faith of this particular lawsuit, having regard for the special temptations that the statutory private antitrust remedy affords for the institution of vexatious litigation, and the inordinate amount of time that such cases sometimes demand of the trial courts, there is good reason for giving the summary judgment rule its full legitimate sweep in this field.

In this case petitioner, the party opposing the motion, had complete access by means of pretrial discovery to all the evidence he could marshal at a trial on the merits. ^[6] Neither his cross-examination of hostile witnesses nor his own direct testimony by way of deposition and affidavit produced any evidence which would indicate that the respondents sought to accomplish anything more than to purchase for CBS a UHF station in Milwaukee. As the Court's opinion seems to recognize, such a purchase (accompanied by a cancellation of petitioner's station affiliation) would be unlawful only if 'conceived in a purpose to unreasonably restrain trade, control a market, or monopolize.' (Ante, 368 U.S., p. 469, 82 S.Ct., p. 489.) (Emphasis added.) In other words, unless a purpose to cancel petitioner's affiliation and purchase the Bartell station would, by itself, be unlawful, petitioner could prevail in this suit only if he proved that the respondents intended to stifle competition in, or monopolize, television broadcasting, either by closing down his station or, more broadly, by destroying the UHF business in whole or in part. ^[7]

This crucial issue, therefore, turns on proof of the respondents' motives. Had petitioner proceeded to trial and introduced no more evidence of motive than was revealed by the pretrial depositions and affidavits, the case, in my opinion, could not well have been permitted to go to the jury. There being no extrinsic evidence of an unlawful purpose, and CBS' executives having unequivocally denied any purpose to eliminate petitioner as a competitor, the jury would be left with no affirmative evidence of any intent to restrain trade. The possibility that the jury might disbelieve the respondents' assertions of innocence is not enough to forestall the entry of summary judgment in their favor. Dyer v. MacDougall, 201 F.2d 265.

Despite the ample opportunity afforded him by the availability of pretrial discovery procedures, petitioner, as will be shown, was able to produce no evidence to support his charges that a conspiracy, narrow or far-reaching, had been hatched. He should not be permitted to proceed to trial just on the hope that in the more formal atmosphere of the courtroom witnesses will revise their testimony or that a clever trial tactic will produce helpful evidence. Courts do not exist to afford opportunities for such litigating gambles. See Radio City Music Hall Corp. v. United States, 2 Cir., 135 F.2d 715; Schneider v. McKesson & Robbins, Inc., supra; cf. Orvis v. Brickman, 90 U.S.App.D.C. 266, 270, 196 F.2d 762, 765-766; Lavine v. Shapiro, 7 Cir., 257 F.2d 14, 20-21.

I find nothing in this record to support a claim that CBS, in proceeding as it did, was actuated by a desire to restrain or monopolize trade.

It appears from questions asked of Stanton and Salant, two CBS officers, that petitioner sought to imply an unlawful motive to destroy competition from CBS' failure to negotiate with him in the first instance for the purchase of WCAN. Were it shown that respondents refused to consider purchasing petitioner's instead of Bartell's station, although the former was available on satisfactory terms, such a showing might be some evidence of an intent to eliminate petitioner as a competitor of the other station bought by CBS. But the record shows that respondents throughout insisted that their refusal to deal with petitioner was the result of information that he had placed an exorbitant price on his station. That insistence, which Poller did not controvert or himself impugn, is confirmed by his own computation of damages in this case, as well as by his deposition testimony which reveals that he valued the WCAN property at $2,000,000 and demanded that price of all interested purchasers. CBS bought the Bartell station, although to be sure it had substantially inferior facilities, for $335,000.

Nor is there any evidence in the record to indicate that the respondents anticipated petitioner's offer to sell his facilities to CBS. It is clear from the affidavits and depositions, and is, in fact, conceded in petitioner's brief before this Court, that it was petitioner who initiated the negotiations and 'importuned CBS to take his equipment off his hands.' Petitioner contends that the respondents knew he would have no use for the recently enlarged plant once his CBS affiliation was canceled, so that his offer of sale was a necessary consequence of the disaffiliation. But this proves only that petitioner's injury may as readily have been the result of CBS' lawful program of expansion as of an invidious scheme to restrain competition. It buttresses the conclusion reached by the Court of Appeals (109 U.S.App.D.C. 170, 173, 176, 284 F.2d 599, 602, 605) that the diminution in the value of petitioner's property was attributable to petitioner's imprudent investment ^[8] rather than to any antitrust conspiracy by the respondents in addition, petitioner's surmise that the respondents must have known that the cancellation of Poller's affiliation would result in his offering his equipment to CBS is hardly consistent with the fact, sworn to by Salant and never traversed, that CBS had its engineering department draw up complete plans as to how the Bartell facilities could be expanded to make them suitable for CBS' intended use.

Finally, it is entirely clear from the record that petitioner was unable to prove that the respondents' motive was to eliminate his station. It is undisputed that at the time Holt obtained the option on the Bartell station both the American Broadcasting and DuMont networks had no primary affiliates in the Milwaukee market. There is nothing to indicate that respondents should have anticipated at the birth of their alleged conspiracy that such affiliations would be unavailable to petitioner if the CBS tie were broken. Moreover, it is patent from the terms of the contract under which CBS purchased petitioner's equipment that petitioner represented to the respondents that he would continue broadcasting operations as an independent from the studio formerly occupied by Bartell. ^[9] It was only after this representation was made, albeit, as petitioner now claims, with only 'about a 5 per cent hope' that he would be able to continue, that the exchange of facilities was consummated. The transaction was in all ways consistent with the parties' written intention to maintain two operating UHF stations in Milwaukee. For it was surely much more likely that petitioner could survive as an independent by using the smaller Bartell plant than by remaining in his enlarged studio, which had absorbed a large amount of capital that could not, at least immediately, be put to fruitful use.

In sum, the District Court had before it on this motion for summary judgment a record on which it was apparent that petitioner could prove only that CBS had undertaken to cancel its affiliation with petitioner's station and, with Holt's assistance, to purchase a competing UHF station. Only if such a 'conspiracy' is prohibited by § 1 or § 2 of the Sherman Act should the petitioner have been permitted to proceed to trial.

Respondents freely admit that the purchase of the Bartell station and the cancellation of petitioner's affiliation were parts of one course of action. They maintain, however, that their intention was to purchase a UHF station in Milwaukee as the first step in an incipient program of expansion into the UHF market, made possible by the Federal Communications Commission's then recently adopted '5-and-2' amendment to its multiple-ownership rule. By reason of this amendment, a single licensee was permitted to own two UHF stations in addition to the maximum five VHF stations theretofore allowed. I would hold that an arrangement to attain this objective did not, of itself, violate § 1 of the Sherman Act.

It must be obvious that the cancellation of an affiliation agreement by one network, not acting in concert with any other, does not alone give rise to a cause of action under the antitrust laws. Federal Broadcasting System, Inc., v. American Broadcasting Co., 3 Cir., 167 F.2d 349. A network is surely free to cut its ties to one station and affiliate with another in the same market. Such an act is analogous to a manufacturer's transfer of an exclusive distributorship from one dealer in the market to another. This freedom to choose with whom one deals is preserved under the antitrust laws not only because it is a unilateral decision, but because it does not amount to an unreasonable restraint of trade in any meaningful sense of the term, cf. Packard Motor Car Co. v. Webster Motor Car Co., 100 U.S.App.D.C. 161, 243 F.2d 418; Fargo Glass & Paint Co. v. Globe American Corp., 7 Cir., 201 F.2d 534.

To overcome these apparent barriers to any holding that § 1 of the Sherman Act was here violated, petitioner suggests two theories under which respondents' conduct might constitute a forbidden restraint of trade: (1) That by reason of the 'leverage of its network power' CBS was able to restrain trade among the independently owned UHF stations in the Milwaukee area; and (2) that CBS' purchase of a television station amounted, per se, to an unreasonable restraint of trade. How either of these alleged restraints, assuming they are unlawful, caused petitioner's alleged loss is left a mystery. Regardless of any question of causation, however, petitioner can prevail on neither theory.

To the extent that the 'leverage' complained of charges CBS with monopolizing a market, petitioner's claim falls under § 2, a matter to which I will revert in a moment. Infra, 368 U.S., pp. 485-486, 82 S.Ct., pp. 497-498. Apart from monopoly power, the respondents could have violated the antitrust laws only by conspiring in some manner to use CBS' 'leverage' to restrain trade. Clearly, the disaffiliation alone was not an unlawful use of the network's power. Having built up the value of his station substantially because of its CBS affiliation, petitioner is hardly in a position to claim that by depriving him, in the exercise of a contract right, of the benefit of such an affiliation CBS was unreasonably exercising its superior power to restrain trade. And there is no indication in the record that this 'leverage' in any way affected the purchase price of petitioner's equipment, even were it to be assumed that the respondents foresaw that petitioner would be willing to sell. The charges here are unlike those in United States v. Radio Corporation of America, 158 F.Supp. 333, reversed, 358 U.S. 334, 79 S.Ct. 457, 3 L.Ed.2d 354, in which the Government sought to enjoin, as violating § 1, a network's attempt to coerce an independent owner into selling his station to the network under threat of canceling the network's affiliation with other stations under the same ownership. In this case there is no claim made that CBS conditioned the continuation of some network service upon petitioner's consent to sell his equipment, or on his willingness to reduce his price.

Nor can I agree that the contract whereby CBS became a station owner in the Milwaukee market was, in and of itself, a contract in restraint of trade. Petitioner is unable to point to any convincing differences between the vertical integration that is accomplished when a network purchases a station and that which results from an affiliation contract. Moreover, the very contention now being made here by the petitioner has repeatedly been presented to the Federal Communications Commission, and that agency has consistently adhered to the view that network ownership of stations, subject, of course, to the maximum-ownership limitation, is not contrary to the public interest. E.g., ABC Paramount Merger, 8 Pike and Fischer Radio Reg. 541; St. Louis Telecast, Inc., 12 Pike and Fischer Radio Reg. 1289, 1372; National Broadcasting Co., 20 Pike and Fischer Radio Reg. 411, 419.

This Court has also been reluctant to hold that vertical expansion alone can amount to an unreasonable restraint prohibited by § 1 of the Sherman Act. United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U.S. 131, 173-174, 68 S.Ct. 915, 936-937, 92 L.Ed. 1260; United States v. Columbia Steel Co., 334 U.S. 495, 525, 68 S.Ct. 1107, 1123, 92 L.Ed. 1533. Without of course suggesting that the Federal Communications Commission has authority to alleviate an applicant for a station license from the requirements of the antitrust laws, United States v. Radio Corporation of America, 358 U.S. 334, 79 S.Ct. 457, 3 L.Ed.2d 354, in light of the uniform course of decisions by the agency familiar with the field, and in the absence of any indication that this particular purchase in fact restrained trade, I think it is clear that petitioner's injury, even if it be assumed partially attributable to CBS' purchase, may not be made the basis of a treble-damage action.

Petitioner's § 2 claim is if anything even more insubstantial. He contends that respondents conspired to monopolize the UHF market in Milwaukee, and perhaps across the country, and that they succeeded in their attempt, at least in Milwaukee. But it is undisputed that the television sets being produced and sold in the Milwaukee area at the time of the alleged conspiracy were all equipped to receive VHF broadcasts and could be adapted to receive UHF signals as well. .thus, any UHF station was necessarily in competition with all VHF stations in the market with respect to both the viewing and the advertising public. Indeed, as the record uncontrovertedly shows, the CBS station ultimately succumbed because the VHF competition was too strong. Since CBS was patently not a monopolist in the Milwaukee market (which included both UHF and VHF), and since there was no allegation that it approached monopoly power in any other market in which petitioner was a competitor, the entry of summary judgment in favor of the respondents on this claim too was eminently correct.

I have gone into this matter at some length because in my opinion the Court's encouragement of this sort of antitrust 'enforcement' does disservice to the healthy observance of these laws. I would affirm.

Notes

1. Under 15 U.S.C. § 15, 15 U.S.C.A. § 15 'Any person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws is given a private right of action.'
2. The last of these allegations was not included in the complaint since the station acquired by CBS did not cease operations until after this suit was brought. It was alleged, however, in petitioner's supplemental affidavit in response to the motion for summary judgment.
3. If such issues of fact were open and petitioner could prove at the trial that respondents' motives were unlawful, I think it would still be incumbent upon him to prove that the disaffiliation of WCAN was part of the illegal scheme. There is evidence in the record, not contradicted, tending to show that CBS would have canceled that affiliation without regard to its purchase of the Bartell station. If so, much, if not all, of petitioner's alleged loss would have been incurred because of this unilateral act, and not 'by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws.'
4. While I do not reach respondents' contention that no consensual arrangement of any kind was shown, I must say that the Court has stretched very fair in suggesting that Holt may have been a 'conspirator.' The record shows, beyond any real possibility of contradiction, that Holt was simply engaged by CBS to act for it, as undisclosed principal, in procuring from Bartell an option to purchase WOKY. So far as Bartell is concerned, it stands uncontroverted in the record that he never knew of CBS' interest in Holt's option until it was exercised by CBS.
5. The record shows that the undisclosed employment of Holt was due to CBS' desire to keep its competitors, particularly the National Broadcasting Company, from knowledge of its intentions respecting WOKY. This is, of course, a perfectly normal business phenomenon.
6. There is no suggestion that petitioner was not afforded opportunity to examine any witness he wanted, either before or after respondents made their motion for summary judgment.
7. The assertion that respondents sought to destroy 'the UHF industry * * * because of the enormous economic investment they had in VHF,' upon which the Court relies (ante, 368 U.S., p. 469, 82 S.Ct., p. 489), was not made in any of the papers filed with the District Court. It was first raised during oral argument on the motion for summary judgment. There is nothing in the record to support this charge except the hindsight inference arising from the fact that after four years of operating the UHF station in Milwaukee, CBS discontinued it, claiming that the VHF competition was too powerful.
8. The record shows that Poller from the beginning had unsuccessfully tried to persuade CBS to enlarge the term of his affiliation contract cancellation clause from six months to two years, and that, with eyes thus open, he nonetheless proceeded with his substantial equipment investment.
9. One of the introductory clauses of the contract provided:

'WHEREAS, Midwest (petitioner) has represented to CBS that Midwest intends to continue the operation of WCAN and all business incidental thereto, and for that purpose CBS proposes to make the sale and transfers hereinafter set forth; * * *'

I find no persuasive basis in the record for petitioner's assertion that this was designed as a self-serving declaration to cloak CBS' alleged antitrust malefactions. By that same contract CBS sold to Poller the WOKY equipment, in part consideration for the purchase of his equipment, the thought quite evidently being that such equipment would suffice for his continued operations, while the superior WCAN equipment would relieve CBS from the necessity of completely re-equipping WOKY.