Cornwell Quality Tools Co. v. C. T. S. Company, Inc., Cornwell Quality Tools Co. v. C. T. S. Company, Inc.

Cornwell Quality Tools Co. (“Corn-well”) and C.T.S. Company, Inc. (“CTS”) filed cross-appeals from the adverse portions of the district court’s judgment entered after each party had moved successfully against the other for directed verdicts.

The case breaks into four parts: (1) Cornwell’s claim against CTS to recover the purchase price of merchandise it sold to CTS, its former distributor, and CTS’s set-off and counterclaim against Cornwell charging breach of a claimed oral contract to repurchase the inventory upon termination of CTS’s distributorship; (2) CTS’s counterclaims against Cornwell for treble damages based on alleged violations of the federal antitrust laws; (3) Cornwell’s counterclaim against CTS charging a violation of the federal antitrust laws; and (4) Corn-well’s contention that the district court erred in taxing costs.

Cornwell, an Ohio manufacturer of mechanics’ hand tools, entered an agreement with CTS in 1956 whereby CTS became Cornwell’s sole distributor in California and Nevada. CTS entered contracts with dealers to whom were assigned specified territories. The dealers, sometimes called “wagon men,” made sales from trucks to the ultimate consumers, usually…