Woodman’s Food Market, Inc. v. Clorox Company

Dist. Ct. erred in failing to grant defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiff-retailer’s action alleging that defendants’ decision to sell its largest-sized packages of its products to only large discount warehouses constituted unlawful price discrimination under subsection 2(e) of Robinson-Patman Act, 15 USC section 13(e), even though defendants’ largest packages tended to have lower unit cost than smaller packages offered by defendants to plaintiff. Ct rejected plaintiff’s claim that defendants’ largest-sized packages amounted to promotional “service or facility” and agreed with defendants that product size is not “services or facilities” for purpose of section 13(e), since: (1) issues with respect to bulk-purchasing discounts are covered under section 13(a); (2) “services or facilities” in subsection 13(e) refer only to those services or facilities connected with promoting said product, rather than covering any attribute of product that makes it more desirable to consumer; and (3) package size, alone, is not promotional service or facility.