Suckow Borax Mines Consolidated, Inc. v. Borax Consolidated, Limited

This action was commenced by the four appellants on September 11, 1947. It is a suit for treble damages brought under the antitrust laws of the United States, 15 U.S.C.A. § IS, involves the borax industry, and is based on the claim that appellees conspired together and drove appellants out of business by wrongful and illegal acts, all of which damaged appellants in the sum of $5,000,000. The prayer of the complaint is for a recovery of three times this, amount. The case is here on appeal from the order of the trial court dismissing appellants’ second amended complaint and from the denial of a motion to amend the said order so. as to permit the filing of a third amended complaint.

The Complaint

The complaint (in 95 lengthy paragraphs, which occupy 77 pages of the appeal record) recites a history of the development of the borax industry, and charges that since 1929, and many years prior thereto and continuing up until approximately 1945, the defendants conspired to, and did, monopolize and control the mining, production, processing, manufacture, distribution, trade and sale of the world’s supply of crude borates, refined borax, and boric acid. This monopoly, it is charged, was…