478 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



munities, cities or towns of this state by purchasing such commodity or 

 commodities at a higher price or rate in one section, locality, community, 

 city or town, than is paid for the same commodity by said person, firm, 

 company, asociation or corporation in another section, locality, community, 

 city or town, after making due allowance for the difference, if any, in the 

 grade or quality, and in the actual cost of transportation from the point of 

 purchase to the point of manufacture, sale or storage, shall be deemed 

 guilty of unfair discrimination which is hereby prohibited and declared 

 to be unlawful; but prices made to meet competition in such locality shall 

 not be in violation of this act, and any person, firm, company, association 

 or corporation or any officer, agent, receiver or member of any such firm, 

 company, association or corporation fund guilty of unfair discrimination 

 as defined herein, shall be punished as provided in section five thousand 

 twenty-eight-c (5028-c) of the Supplement to the Code, 1907. 



The penalty fixed in section five thousand and twenty-eight-c (5028-c) is 

 a fine of not less than $500 nor more than $5,000 or imprisonment in the 

 county jail not to exceed one year or both penalties. 



The following letter was written a short time after the passage 

 of the above law and gives the opinion of Attorney General Byers 

 on certain points and will bear a careful reading : 



Sir. — I am in receipt of your communication of the 3d inst., requesting 

 an interpretation of chapter 222, acts of the thirty-third general assembly 

 which amends section 5028-b of the supplement to the code 1907, relating 

 to unfair discrimination. You request to be advised specifically: 



1. As to whether the act requires a purchaser of cream to pay the 

 same price to all persons throughout the state on the same day. 



2. In the case of a cream purchasing agent, buying cream in the lo- 

 cality where there is a local creamery, is the cream purchasing agent per- 

 mitted to pay a higher price in that locality than is paid by his employer 

 elsewhere, and if so to what extent. 



3. If the purchaser raises the test on butter fat above what is actually 

 shown by the test would this constitute a violation of the act? 



4. Is the Food and Dairy Department charged with any responsibility 

 in the enforcement of this statute? 



1 and 2. Your first and second questions are so closely related that they 

 may be answered jointly. . 



The purpose of the act was to prohibit any person, firm, company, as- 

 sociation or corporation doing business in this state and engaged in the 

 business of buying milk, cream or butter fat for the purpose of manufac- 

 ture, or of buying poultry, eggs or grain for the purpose of sale or stor- 

 age from destroying the business of a competitor or creating a monopoly 

 by paying different prices in different parts of the state for the same grade 

 and quality of the articles purchased after making due allowance for the 

 difference in transportation from the point of purchase to the point of 

 manufacture, sale or storage. The thing prohibited by the act is the 

 discrimination in price for an illegal purpose, viz.: For the destroying of 

 competition or the creating of a monopoly. The act itself, however, per- 

 mits the paying of a different price in one place than is paid generally 



