NOTES OF RECENT CASES OF IMPORTANCE FROM THE NATIONAL REPORTER SYSTEM. (Copie* of the pamphlet Reporten containing full reports of any of these decisions may be secured from the West Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, at 25 cents each. In ordering, the title of the desired case should be given as well as the citation of volume and page of the Reporter in which it is printed.)
ANTI-TRUST ACT. (ACTION BY CITY FOR INJURY то BUSINESS.) UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT OK APPEALS, SIXTH CIRCUIT.
The case of City of Atlanta г: Chattanooga Foundry and Pipe Works, 127 Federal Re porter 23, was an action brought by the city to recover damages incurred in its business by reason of a combination of pipe companies formed in violation of the Anti-Trust Act. The city was maintaining a system of water works, and furnished water to consumers, charging for the same in exactly the same way as would a private corporation. The evidence tended to show that the object of the combination was to prevent any other producer from bidding for plaintiff's busi ness, and that practices were adopted in tended to compel it to deal exclusively with the Alabama member of the association, and to pay a price settled by the combination in advance of any bid. For this privilege the Alabama corporation agreed to pay a large sum into the pool treasury, called a bonus," which was to be divided in agreed propor tions. An appearance of competition was to be maintained by bids put in by the others, such bids being higher in each instance than that made by the company to whom the con tract had been assigned. The court holds that a municipal corporation engaged in operating gas, water or lighting plants, or street rail roads, from which a revenue is derived, is in relation to these matters a business corpor ation, and can maintain a suit for injury to its business under the Anti-Trust Law. It is held to be no defense that no purchase was made by the city from either of the Tennes see corporations made defendant. Their guilt is held to be as great as that of the corporation from whom the purchase was made, for the reason that each is responsible
for the torts committed by the others in the course of carrying out the illegal combina tion. The city is held to be entitled to re cover the difference between the price paid for the pipe and the reasonable price which would have been paid under natural competi tive conditions, and it is said that such recov ery can be had for the injury to the business, whether such business is interstate or not, provided the transaction by which the pur chase was made was interstate. The court further holds that an action brought under Section 7 of the Anti-Trust Law, which gives a recovery of three-fold damages, is not an action for a penalty or forfeiture, which, under the statute, must be brought within five years, but is a civil remedy, and is gov erned as to limitation by the statutes of the State in which it is brought. Upon this point the court refers specifically to the many authorities collected in the cases of Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U.'S. 657, 13 Sup. Ct. 224, and Brady v. Daly, 175 U. S. 148, 20 Sup. Ct. 62, and also to the opinion of Judge Clark in the court below, reported in 101 Fed. 900. The court also governs its rulings by the opinion of the Supreme Court in the case of Addison Pipe Co. v. United States, 175 U. S. 211, 20 Sup. Ct. 96, 44 L. Ed. 136. ASSAULT. (ATTEMPT то Kiss— CONSENT OF PROSECUTRIX — INTENT то INJURE— EXCESSIVE PEN ALTIES.) TEXAS COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS.
In Chambless v. State, 79 Southwestern Reporter 577, it is held that where a man who reasonably believes that a woman will allow him to kiss her, makes the attempt to do so without intending to accomplish the act by force, he is not guilty of assault. To constitute an assault there must be an intent to injure, and where as in the case of a kiss
