Falls City Industries v. Vanco Beverage
United States Supreme Court
460 U.S. 428 (1983)
Falls City Industries (defendant) sold beer at different wholesale prices in Kentucky and Indiana; Vanco Beverage (plaintiff), an Indiana wholesaler, sued under the Robinson-Patman Act, alleging the price differential was unlawful price discrimination. Falls City argued the lower Kentucky price was set to meet a specific competitor's price there in good faith. The case turned on whether that price difference was truly a good-faith response to competition or merely a way to keep higher, protected margins in Indiana.
Whether the Robinson-Patman Act's meeting-competition defense permits a firm to charge a discriminatorily lower price in one market so long as it was set in a good-faith effort to meet a competitor's price, even while maintaining higher prices elsewhere.