U.S. Supreme Court LEVERING & GARRIGUES CO. v. MORRIN, 289 U.S. 103 (1933)

[Page 289 U.S. 103, 108]

That case involved a combination on the part of building contractors and others to establish the 'open shop' plan of employing labor by requiring builders who desired materials of certain kinds to obtain permits from a builders' exchange, and by refusing such permits to those who did not support the plan. We held that any resulting interference with the free movement of materials from other states, due to the lack of demand therefor upon the part of builders who were excluded from purchasing such materials by reason of their refusal to support the plan, was incidental, indirect, and remote, and, therefore, not an unlawful interference with interstate commerce. After pointing out that the question was thus determined by applying the Coronado and United Leather Workers Cases, we said: 'The alleged conspiracy, and the acts here complained of, spent their intended and direct force upon a local situation-for building is as essentially local as mining, manufacturing or growing crops-and if, by a resulting diminution of the commercial demand, interstate trade was curtailed either generally or in specific instances that was a fortuitous consequence so remote and indirect as plainly to cause it to fall outside the reach of the Sherman Act (15 USCA 1-7, 15 note).'

The pertinent facts of that case and those here alleged are substantially the same, and subject to the same rule. It follows that the federal district court was without jurisdiction because the federal question presented was plainly unsubstantial, since it had, prior to the filing of the bill, been foreclosed by the two previous decisions last named, and was no longer the subject of controversy. See also Browning v. Waycross, 233 U.S. 16, 22, 23 S., 34 S.Ct. 578; General Railway Signal Co. v. Virginia, 246 U.S. 500, 509, 510 S., 38 S.Ct. 360. The decree must be affirmed for this reason and it becomes unnecessary to consider the other ground discussed by the court below and upon which its decision primarily was predicated.

Decree affirmed.