American Crystal Sugar Co. v. Mandeville Island Farms, Inc.

This appeal is from a judgment awarding to appellees treble damages and attorneys’ fees under Section 4 of -the Clayton Act, IS U.S.C.A. § IS.

Appellant, here for convenience called Crystal, is a beet sugar manufacturer. The suit, waged under the anti-trust laws, is the outgrowth of a change in Crystal’s method of determining the price to be paid appel-lees and other sugar beet growers for beets grown under contract with Crystal in the area which supplied the latter’s Clarks-burg, California, refinery. Both prior and subsequent to the crop years 1939, 1940 and 1941, Crystal’s growers were paid on the basis of a contract formula comprising two variable factors: (1) the percentage sugar content of the beets grown by the particular grower, and (2) the average net return from the sugar manufactured in the Clarks-burg refinery and sold during the crop year in question. This is termed the single net method, measured by the net returns from sugar from Crystal’s own 'factory. These returns were divided approximately 50-50 between manufacturer and grower.

During the years in suit, 1939, ’40 and ’41, the second variable of the price formula was changed by Crystal to the average net return…