Peter L. Cleary v. National Distillers and Chemilcal Corporation, a Virginia Corporation, and McMinnville Sunshine Dairy Inc., an Oregon Corporation

Before KILKENNY and SNEED, Circuit Judges, and JAMESON, District Judge.

Cleary appeals from a directed verdict in favor of appellees in a treble damage suit under the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1 et seq. Appellant alleges that appel-lees, National Distillers and Chemical Corporation (National) and McMinnville Sunshine Dairy, Inc. (Sunshine), combined to restrain trade by preventing him from purchasing from National, a hydrocarbon detection device known in the dairy business as a “snifter.”

The sole issue on appeal is the sufficiency of the evidence supporting appellant’s claim that appellees engaged in a concerted refusal to deal. We find appellant’s evidence, taken as a whole, is insufficient and, therefore, affirm.

In considering a motion for a directed verdict, the court must give the party against whom the motion is made the benefit of all reasonable evidentiary inferences. Continental Ore Co. v. Union Carbide & Carbon Corp., 370 U.S. 690, 699 , 82 S.Ct. 1404 , 8 L.Ed.2d 777 (1962); Independent Iron Works, Inc. v. United States Steel Corp., 322 F.2d 656, 661 (CA9 1963), cert. denied 375 U.S. 922 , 84 S.Ct. 267 , 11 L.Ed.2d 165 . This is no less true in an antitrust…