Counsel concluded their arguments yesterday and decision was reserved in the case of the Certified Yeast Corporation against the Jewish Bakers Voice, Inc., Bakers & Consumers Compressed Yeast Co. and the Ideal Yeast Co., the three defendants being charged with damages to the extent of $450,000. Justice Edward J. Byrne, sitting in Special Terms Part 3, of the Brooklyn Supreme Court, gave attorneys another week in which to file the concluding briefs.
Unlike last Friday’s lively session, during which the Jewish owners of the plaintiff company admitted under cross-examination that they had purchased a quantity of German-made goods, yesterday’s session brought nothing but routine testimony from Edward Hauswirth, sales manager of the Ideal Yeast Co., and James J. Hastings, president of the Bakers & Consumers Compressed Yeast Co. Both were called to the stand by Joseph Conroy, counsel for the Certified Yeast Corp.
The suit arose out of the purported efforts of the defendants to discourage purchase of the plaintiff’s merchandise by charging it was bringing this merchandise in from Germany, despite the boycott against German-made goods by the yeast and baking industries instituted after the establishment of Hitler’s regime.
Certified charged perpetration of coercion and intimidation on the part of the defendants to prevent its customers from using its yeast. Conspiracy also was alleged.
DENIES SUBTERFUGE
In a brief summation yesterday, Mr. Conroy declared the plaintiff did not attempt to conceal the purchase of German yeast up to June 6 or 7, 1933, and conceded that if the Jewish Bakers’ Voice had discontinued publication of its accusations after that date, there would have been no complaint.
Motions to dismiss the case were made by Samuel Gottlieb, attorney for the ‘Jewish Bakers’ Voice; Harold H. Bowman, counsel for the Bakers & Consumers firm, and Ferdinand I. Haber, who represented the Ideal Yeast Co.
Mr. Conroy, during yesterday’s session, offered for the record last January’s decision of the Jewish Court of Conciliation, where the case was arbitrated and where the judges-David Sarnoff, Bernard S. Deutsch and Rabbi Israel Goldstein-ruled in favor of Certified, seeing no grounds for boycotting it.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
