C. S. Smith Metropolitan Market Co. v. Food & Grocery Bureau of Southern California, Inc.

The Court is of the view that, leaving aside the question whether the practices of the defendants with regard to maintenance of prices, would be legal or illegal, reasonable or unreasonable, if interstate commerce were involved, the acts complained of do not affect directly interstate commerce and do not constitute a restraint of it.

The plaintiff is a California corporation, engaged solely in the business of selling and distributing food, groceries and allied articles of merchandise at retail in various retail stores owned and maintained by it in the cities of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Lynwood, and Compton, all in the County of Los Angeles, California.

Assuming that some of the products on its shelves are imported from other states, the moment they reach its shelves, they come to rest and cease to be “in the flow” of interstate commerce. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 1935, 295 U.S. 495 , 55 S.Ct. 837 , 79 L.Ed. 1570 , 97 A.L.R. 947 ; Southern Pac. Co. v. Gallagher, 1938, 306 U.S. 167 , 59 S.Ct. 389 , 83 L.Ed. 586 .

As they are not subject to regulation by the Congress in that condition, they are not within the contemplation of the Sherman Anti-Trust law, 15 U.S.C.A.…