Borden’s Farm Products Co., Inc. v. Ten Eyck

New York (defendant) enacted a Depression-era statute setting temporary minimum milk prices that let off-brand milk be priced one cent per quart below name-brand milk. Borden's Farm Products Co. (plaintiff), a name-brand dealer, sued, claiming the differential denied it equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Before the statute, name-brand milk had, through market forces and heavy advertising, sold at least a cent per quart above off-brand. The lower courts upheld the statute, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Whether a price-fixing statute that maintains an existing competitive status quo by preserving a price differential between classes of competitors violates the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.