Industrial Building Materials, Inc. v. Interchemical Corporation

The appellant, Industrial, filed an action for damages under the Sherman Act ( 15 U.S.C. §§ 1 & 2) and the'Clayton Act, as amended by the Robinson-Patman Act ( 15 U.S.C. § 13 (a)). After extensive discovery and pre-trial efforts at defining issues, the District Court dismissed the action for failure of plaintiff’s counsel to comply with a court order and also granted summary judgment for defendants. Industrial appeals from both the summary judgment and the judgment of dismissal.

Defendants below were Martin-Marietta Company and Interchemical Corporation, now Inmont Corporation, successive owners of Martin-Marietta’s Press-tite Division. The dispute involves Presstite’s decision that it would no longer avail itself of Industrial’s services as a distributor. In 1961 Industrial purchased the business of Hubbard Company, who had almost exclusive rights to distribute Presstite products in California, Nevada, and Arizona. Industrial claims that, at the time of the purchase, Presstite’s officers gave oral assurance that the exclusive distributorship arrangement would continue so long as Industrial “did a good job.” Presstite was then owned by Martin-Marietta, but it was purchased by…