Moore v. New York Cotton Exchange, 270 U.S. 593 (1926)
Moore v. New York Cotton Exchange
No. 200
Argued March 9, 1926
Decided April 12, 1926
270 U.S. 593
APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
Syllabus
1. Relief, under the Trade Commission Act, against unfair competition must be afforded in the first instance by the Commission. P. 603.
2. A decree of the circuit court of appeals affirming orders which denied an interlocutory injunction to the plaintiff and granted one to the defendant, and remanding the cause with direction to dismiss the bill and make the injunction permanent, is final for purposes of appeal. Id.
3. Transactions between the members of the New York Cotton Exchange, consisting of agreements made on the spot for purchase and sale of cotton for future delivery, the cotton to be represented by warehouse receipts issued by a licensed warehouse in the Port of New York and to be deliverable from such warehouse, are local transactions not involving interstate commerce. Id.
4. The fact that such agreements are likely to give rise to interstate shipments does not make the agreements interstate commerce, such shipments being merely incidental. Id.
5. A contract between the cotton exchange and a telegraph company under which the exchange, at its own expense, collects its quotations of such sales and delivers them to the telegraph company, which transmits them like other messages at the charges of the recipients, to such persons only as the exchange approves, the telegraph paying the exchange for the privilege of having the business, is not a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. P. 604.
6. In thus furnishing quotations to some and refusing them to others, the exchange is but exercising the ordinary right of a vendor of news; the telegraph company, as carrier, cannot deliver the messages to others than those designated by the seller, and the contract between exchange and telegraph does not, in purpose or effect, operate directly or unreasonably to restrain interstate commerce or to create a monopoly. P. 605.
7. A bill setting up a claim under a federal statute which, though unjustified, is not devoid of all color of merit invokes the federal jurisdiction to decide the claim, and a decision dismissing the bill upon rejection of the claim is not a dismissal for want of jurisdiction. P. 608.
8. Under Equity Rule 30, requiring that the answer state any counterclaim "arising out of the transaction which is the subject matter of the suit," a cotton exchange, in a suit against it and a telegraph company to cancel a contract between them respecting the sending out of exchange quotations and for a mandatory injunction to compel delivery of quotations to plaintiff, was entitled to seek by counterclaim an injunction restraining the plaintiff from wrongfully obtaining its quotations. P. 609.
296 F. 61 affirmed.
Appeal from a decree of the circuit court of appeals which on interlocutory appeal sustained orders of the district court (291 F. 681) refusing an interlocutory injunction to the plaintiff and granting one for a defendant on a counterclaim, and which directed a final decree dismissing the bill and making the injunction permanent. The suit was based on the Sherman Law, and primarily concerned the validity of a contract between the New York Cotton Exchange and the Western Union Telegraph Company for the distribution of quotations of that exchange to such persons only as received its approval.