These are companion appeals from orders sustaining demurrers to indictments for violations of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq. The indictment in No. 81 charges the defendants, manufacturers of gasoline pumps, a manufacturer of gasoline computing mechanisms and a gasoline pump manufacturing association, and certain of their officers, with conspiracy extending from 1932 to the date of the indictment, January 31, 1941, to fix the prices of computer pumps in interstate trade and commerce, in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Computer pumps are gasoline pumps embodying a mechanism which calculates, measures, displays and records the quantities and prices of gasoline passing through the pumps to the purchasers. In No. 82 the defendants are the same except that the association and its officer are omitted. This latter indictment varies from the former in that in two counts it charges a conspiracy to monopolize the manufacture and sale of computer pumps and computing mechanisms in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act.
The facts alleged to support the charge in the count for price fixing and those to support the count for monopolizing are substantially the same. The counts vary only as to the purposes alleged. The same means allegedly are employed to carry out each conspiracy. As similar legal issues arise in each case and as our conclusions upon each count are based upon the same reasoning, it is not necessary to make further differentiations between the counts. One opinion was handed down by the district court. It sets out the indictments quite fully. United States v. Wayne Pump Company, D.C., 44 F.Supp. 949.
As our decision does not and cannot in our view consider the correctness of a trial court's judgment that an indictment failed properly to allege the facts establishing a crime (United States v. Sanges, 144 U.S. 310, 12 S.Ct. 609, 36 L.Ed. 445; United States v. Burroughs, 289 U.S. 159, 53 S.Ct. 574, 77 L.Ed. 1096) we do not set out the allegations of these counts in extenso. This has been done in United States v. Wayne Pump Company, supra. We shall state here for convenience in getting a focus on the problem only that the counts of the indictments charged conspiracies among the defendants to fix prices on and monopolize the interstate trade in computer pumps and computing mechanisms by a scheme for using patent rights and licenses to manufacture under them.
The defendants demurred to the indictments as insufficient in law to state an offense. It was said in the demurrers that the indictments failed to describe or particularize the offense attempted to be charged with sufficient definiteness, certainty or specificity to inform the defendants of the nature and causes of the accusations or to enable them to plead an acquittal or conviction thereunder in bar of other proceedings.
The trial court sustained the demurrers to each count from which ruling appeals to this Court were prayed under the Criminal Appeals Act, 34 Stat. 1246. That statute authorizes an appeal to this Court 'from a decision or judgment quashing, setting aside, or sustaining a demurrer to, any indictment, or any count thereof, where such decision or judgment is based upon the invalidity, or construction of the statute upon which the indictment is founded.' We have no jurisdiction if the judgment below is not so based. United States v. Hastings, 296 U.S. 188, 56 S.Ct. 218, 80 L.Ed. 148; United States v. Halsey, Stuart & Co., 296 U.S. 451, 56 S.Ct. 299, 80 L.Ed. 323; United States v. Borden Co., 308 U.S. 188, 60 S.Ct. 182, 84 L.Ed. 181.
In their statement opposing jurisdiction appellees contended that the demurrers were sustained because of the insufficiency of the indictments as pleadings, as distinguished from a construction of the statute upon which the indictments were based and therefore questioned our jurisdiction under the Act. We postponed decision of this question to the argument on the merits and we now come to its decision.
There is disagreement between the parties as to whether the district court sustained the demurrers on the ground of the deficiency of the pleadings as well as upon a construction of the statute. The language of the opinion makes it apparent to us that the district court's conclusion was at least in part bottomed upon the indefiniteness, uncertainty and lack of specificity of the indictments. In the opinion it is said, 44 F.Supp. 949, 956: