Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_09-md-02029/USCOURTS-cand-4_09-md-02029-18/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 410
Nature of Suit: Antitrust
Cause of Action: 15:15 Antitrust Litigation

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

IN RE: ONLINE DVD RENTAL 

ANTITRUST LITIGATION No. M 09-2029 PJH

_______________________________/

ORDER DENYING MOTION

TO DISMISS SECOND AMENDED

This Document Relates to: COMPLAINT

Pierson v. Walmart.com USA LLC, et al.

(C 09-2163 PJH)

Levy, et al. v. Walmart.com USA LLC, et al.

(C 09-2296 PJH)

_______________________________/

Defendants’ motion to dismiss the second amended complaint for lack of antitrust

standing came on for hearing on May 5, 2010 before this court. Plaintiffs, individuals

representing a putative class comprised of subscribers to the online DVD rental service of

Blockbuster, Inc. (“Blockbuster”), appeared through their class counsel, Robert G. Abrams,

Peter Barile, and Guido Saveri. Defendant Netflix, Inc. (“Netflix”) appeared through its

counsel, Jonathan M. Jacobson and Sarah Walsh. Defendants Walmart.com USA LLC

(“Walmart.com”) and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (“Wal-Mart Stores”)(collectively “Wal-Mart”)

appeared through their counsel, Genevieve Vose. Having read all the papers submitted

and carefully considered the relevant legal authority, the court hereby DENIES defendants’

motion to dismiss, as follows.

BACKGROUND

This is the second go-round for the plaintiff class, as they attempt to persuade the

court to answer a straightforward question in their favor: whether plaintiffs, who proceed

against defendants Netflix and Wal-Mart based upon artificially inflated prices that plaintiffs

purportedly paid to non-defendant Blockbuster, have antitrust standing. 

A. The First Motion to Dismiss

On December 1, 2009, the court answered this question in the negative, granting

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defendants’ earlier-filed motion to dismiss the first amended complaint, and dismissing the

complaint with prejudice. See generally Dec. 1, 2009 Order Granting Motion to Dismiss

(“Dismissal Order”). Plaintiffs had originally alleged that defendants Netflix and Wal-Mart

had entered into an unlawful marketing agreement (the “Agreement”), with the purpose and

effect of illegally dividing the markets for sales and online rentals of DVDs in the United

States. Plaintiffs further alleged that, as a result of the Agreement, Wal-Mart exited the

market for online DVD rentals, and Netflix was able to charge supracompetitive prices to its

subscribers. See Complaint, ¶ 3. As a result, theorized plaintiffs, non-defendant

Blockbuster – who was operating in a reduced two-firm market in the post-Agreement

landscape – was able to meet Netflix’s price and charge its own supracompetitive prices for

online rental DVD programs. Id. at ¶ 6. 

The court rejected the contention that this theory, and plaintiffs’ corresponding

allegations, were sufficient to confer antitrust standing, concluding that plaintiffs had failed

to satisfy three of the standing factors identified in Assoc. Gen. Contractors of Cal. v. Cal.

State Council of Carpenters, 459 U.S. 519 (1983)(“AGC”) – directness of the injury,

speculative nature of the harm, and complexity in apportioning damages. The court

specifically found that plaintiffs’ allegations could not establish that Blockbuster’s price

increase in August 2005 was directly attributable to any unlawful agreement or conduct

undertaken by Netflix or Wal-Mart. The court highlighted, among other things, the following

deficiencies:

• plaintiffs failed to allege that Netflix increased its own 3-out subscription price

in conjunction with or in response to the allegedly unlawful market allocation

agreement;

• plaintiffs alleged that Netflix originally dropped the subscription price of its 3- out plan from $21.99 per month to $17.99 in October 2004 as part of its

response to Blockbuster’s entry into the market – i.e., well before Netflix was

alleged to have “embarked upon [its] scheme that would result in the” market

allocation agreement – and never raised it thereafter, making it impossible to

infer that Netflix unlawfully raised its price to $17.99 or maintained it in

response to the anticompetitive conduct alleged by plaintiffs, or that Blockbuster’s own price increase to match Netflix’s $17.99 price in August

2005 was itself an anticompetitive price hike in response to the unlawful

agreement; 

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• that plaintiffs’ allegations suggested that Blockbuster raised its price

independently, and unilaterally, given Blockbuster’s executive’s statement

that its $14.99 price was “not sustainable” and given that it began testing a $17.99 price in advance of the announcement of the unlawful agreement; 

• and that the three month time lag between Wal-Mart’s exit from the

marketplace and Blockbuster’s August 2005 price increase was too long to

suggest a direct link. 

See Dismissal Order at 10-12. The court then dismissed the complaint with

prejudice, denying leave to amend on grounds that any amendment would be futile. See

id. at 13. 

On December 16, 2009, plaintiffs requested leave to seek reconsideration of the

court’s ruling granting dismissal, but only as to the court’s dismissal with prejudice and

denial of leave to amend. The plaintiffs argued that, in view of new facts learned via

discovery, they could now allege a sufficiently direct and causal link between the

conspiratorial conduct alleged to have been engaged in by Netflix and Wal-Mart, and

Blockbuster’s price increase. Plaintiffs’ reconsideration arguments vowed that this new

theory would no longer depend upon Wal-Mart’s exit from the market, but rather on a more

direct link between defendants’ anticompetitive conduct and Blockbuster’s eventual price

increase. 

The court granted plaintiffs’ request for leave to seek reconsideration and for

reconsideration itself, allowing plaintiffs to file a second amended complaint setting forth

their new allegations. See Jan. 29, 2010 Order Granting Motion for Reconsideration and

Leave to File Amended Complaint (“Order Granting Reconsideration”) at 2-3. In so ruling,

the court also noted, however, that plaintiffs “would be well-advised to pay particular

attention to the legal viability of their new causation theory,” and were “further reminded of

the need to set forth allegations that demonstrate the directness of plaintiffs’ injury with the

level of particularity required under the standards previously noted and relied on by this

court.” See Order Granting Reconsideration at 3. 

B. The Second Amended Complaint and Instant Motion to Dismiss

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Plaintiffs filed the second amended complaint (“SAC”) on March 30, 2010. In it,

plaintiffs allege several purportedly new facts in support of a further evolved theory linking

Blockbuster’s price increase to defendants’ allegedly anticompetitive conduct. This revised

theory notwithstanding, defendants once again move to dismiss the amended complaint,

for lack of antitrust standing. 

DISCUSSION

A. Legal Standard

The applicable legal standard is well-established. A motion to dismiss under Rule

12(b)(6) tests for the legal sufficiency of the claims alleged in the complaint. Ileto v. Glock,

Inc., 349 F.3d 1191, 1199-1200 (9th Cir. 2003). Review is limited to the contents of the

complaint. Allarcom Pay Television, Ltd. v. Gen. Instrument Corp., 69 F.3d 381, 385 (9th

Cir. 1995). To survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, a complaint generally

must satisfy only the minimal notice pleading requirements of Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 8. 

Rule 8(a)(2) requires only that the complaint include a “short and plain statement of

the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). Specific

facts are unnecessary – the statement need only give the defendant “fair notice of the claim

and the grounds upon which it rests. Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 93 (citing Bell

Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007)). All allegations of material fact are

taken as true. Id. at 94. However, a plaintiff's obligation to provide the grounds of his

entitlement to relief “requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation

of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (citations and

quotations omitted). Rather, the allegations in the complaint “must be enough to raise a

right to relief above the speculative level. Id.

A motion to dismiss should be granted if the complaint does not proffer enough facts

to state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face. See id. at 558-59. “[W]here the wellpleaded facts do not permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct,

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the complaint has alleged-but it has not show[n] that the pleader is entitled to relief. 

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, __ U.S. __, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1950 (2009). 

In addition, when resolving a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the court

may not generally consider materials outside the pleadings. Lee v. City of Los Angeles,

250 F.3d 668, 688 (9th Cir. 2001). There are several exceptions to this rule. The court

may consider a matter that is properly the subject of judicial notice, such as matters of

public record. Id. at 689; see also Mack v. South Bay Beer Distributors, Inc., 798 F.2d

1279, 1282 (9th Cir. 1986) (on a motion to dismiss, a court may properly look beyond the

complaint to matters of public record and doing so does not convert a Rule 12(b)(6) motion

to one for summary judgment). Additionally, the court may consider exhibits attached to

the complaint, see Hal Roach Studios, Inc. V. Richard Feiner & Co., Inc., 896 F.2d 1542,

1555 n.19 (9th Cir. 1989), and documents referenced by the complaint and accepted by all

parties as authentic. See Van Buskirk v. Cable News Network, Inc., 284 F.3d 977, 980 (9th

Cir. 2002).

B. Plaintiffs’ Newly Revised Allegations 

Plaintiffs’ challenge, via the SAC, is to overcome previously identified hurdles to the

successful establishment of antitrust standing. Defendants contend that the SAC continues

to suffer from the same fundamental deficiency – i.e., the lack of any direct causal link

between plaintiffs’ injuries and defendants’ conduct – that originally led the court to dismiss

the first amended complaint. Plaintiffs, however, rely on their newly revised allegations to

set forth an amended theory of conduct, injury, and causation that purports to address

previously noted deficiencies and satisfy AGC requirements. That amended theory can

generally be stated in two parts: (1) that Netflix’s anticompetitive conduct, beginning as

early as October 2004 and culminating in the May 19, 2005 Agreement, evidenced Netflix’s

conscious decision to pursue anticompetitive conduct and engage in artificial price

maintenance instead of competing in the relevant market and inevitably lowering its price;

and (2) that Blockbuster’s prices were tied to Netflix’s prices, and would have

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consequentially been lower in the fall of 2005, in the absence of Netflix and Wal-Mart’s

anticompetitive conduct and Netflix’s unlawful price maintenance. 

In support of this theory, and their conclusion that antitrust injury has now been

successfully alleged, plaintiffs’ SAC now includes, among others, the following purportedly

“new” allegations: 

• that, after Blockbuster entered the online DVD market with a price of $19.99

and Netflix announced the lowering of its three-out plan from $21.99 per month to $17.99 on October 14, 2004, Netflix’s stock price took a big drop,

and Netflix attributed the price reduction to competition;

• that on October 15, 2004, after Blockbuster again signaled its intent to beat Netflix on price by lowering its price to $17.49, Netflix was motivated to begin

anti-competitive discussions, and on October 17, 2004, sought Wal-Mart’s

CEO John Flemings out, in order to discuss an “alliance;”

• that despite Netflix’s initial pressure, no alliance was reached, and Wal-Mart

instead kept up the competitive pressure and lowered its prices in November

2004 to below that of Netflix and Blockbuster, causing Blockbuster to lower its price to $14.99 in December 2004;

• that during the whole of these price wars in 2004, Netflix avoided lowering its

prices because it was consciously pursuing a different strategy – that of

getting Wal-Mart to exit the marketplace;

• that ultimately, Netflix succeeded, and it reached a handshake deal with WalMart pursuant to which Wal-Mart would exit the market on March 17, 2005,

which agreement was publicly announced on May 19, 2005;

• that news of the deal between Netflix and Wal-Mart leaked and appeared to

be known among the investment community in the days leading up to the

announcement of the promotion agreement;

• that, had Netflix competed legally in the market throughout this whole time period, it would have been forced to lower its prices below $17.99, and

further, that Netflix’s ability to lower its prices is made obvious by the fact that

its cost per subscriber for a three-out plan was approximately $11;

• that Blockbuster always priced at or below Netflix’s prices, and made clear

that it intended to compete with Netflix on price;

• that once Blockbuster was in a two-firm market, it was content merely to

match Netflix’s prices; and 

• that Blockbuster decided to raise its price from $14.99 by early July 2005,

three weeks after Wal-Mart’s exit;

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1 Also new to the SAC are allegations regarding Netflix’s purported efforts to keep

Amazon from entering the online DVD rental market, but these allegations are ultimately not

critical to the present motion. See, e.g., SAC, ¶¶ 84, 86-89.

7

See SAC, ¶¶ 59, 62-66, 68-69, 70, 83-84, 79, 91, 93, 102, 109, 113-14, 117-18.1

At first blush, plaintiffs’ revised allegations appear to present a point by point rebuttal

to several of the deficiencies highlighted by the court in its previous order. The revised

allegations no longer allege, for example, that Netflix’s $17.99 price was set independently

and in advance of defendants’ anticompetitive conduct, but now state that the $17.99 price

was instead an artificially maintained price, following Netflix’s decision to pursue

anticompetitive conduct. Similarly, plaintiffs no longer concede Blockbuster’s early and

independent decision to test a $17.99 price before the May 19, 2005 agreement was

announced. Instead, they allege the existence of a handshake agreement in place in

March 2005 (before Blockbuster tested its $17.99 price); that the purportedly unlawful

agreement was leaked before it was officially announced; and that Blockbuster actually

conducted numerous price tests (thereby lessening the significance of the May 2005

$17.99 price test). Equally significant, the amended complaint no longer reveals a three

month time lag between Wal-Mart’s exit from the market, and Blockbuster’s August 2005

price increase, since plaintiffs now allege that Blockbuster decided to raise prices in July

2005, just a few short weeks after Wal-Mart exited the market, and since plaintiffs further

allege that Blockbuster’s immediate response to Wal-Mart’s exit in June 2005 was to

increase its price to any former Wal-Mart or Netflix customers. 

Plaintiffs’ revised allegations assert a theory of causal injury that is based on a

premise that is distinct from that previously advanced: namely, Netflix’s ability to convert a

competitive price into a supracompetitive price by intentionally refusing to compete in an

unrestrained market, while in pursuit of an anticompetitive agreement with a competitor (as

opposed to setting a supracompetitive price as the immediate consequence of an

anticompetitive agreement); and Blockbuster’s reliance on Netflix pricing in setting its own

prices. 

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The question for the court, of course, is whether plaintiffs’ revised theory satisfies

the three standing requirements – i.e., directness of the injury, speculative nature of the

harm, and complexity in apportioning damages – that plaintiffs’ prior allegations failed to

fulfill. The court has struggled, these past many weeks, to arrive at a ready answer to this

question. 

In particular, the court continues to be troubled by plaintiffs’ ability to allege a

sufficiently direct injury. For even if the court were to conclude that plaintiffs’ revised

allegations satisfactorily allege the first part of plaintiffs’ two-part theory – i.e., that Netflix

consciously decided to forego competition in pursuit of anticompetitive conduct, thereby

intentionally failing to lower its price and engaging in artifical price maintenance – it is not

immediately apparent that plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that Blockbuster’s prices were

tied to Netflix’s prices, and would have consequently been lower in the fall of 2005, in the

absence of Netflix and Wal-Mart’s anticompetitive conduct. 

This is because plaintiffs’ allegations continue to rest upon the fundamental premise

that defendants’ anticompetitive conduct – even if begun much earlier than previously

thought – led to higher prices for Netflix subscribers, which in turn led to higher prices for

Blockbuster subscribers. As defendants point out, this is by definition an indirect injury. 

Furthermore, plaintiffs have not alleged any new fact to explain precisely how or why

Blockbuster’s prices were increased to meet Netflix’s price post-agreement, as a direct

response to defendants’ purportedly unlawful conduct. Rather, plaintiffs seek to fill this void

with the allegations that, as a matter of basic policy, Blockbuster always met or beat

Netflix’s price. See Mot. Dismiss Br. at 2:4-6; SAC, ¶¶ 66, 113-14. This allegation,

however, tends to suggest the unilateral exercise of Blockbuster’s business judgment in

consistently and voluntarily deciding to track Netflix pricing – not that Blockbuster’s decision

to track Netflix pricing in August 2005 was specifically motivated by defendants’ unlawful

conduct. And indeed, the fact that Blockbuster’s practice in meeting or beating Netflix’s

price was in evidence prior to the allegedly anticompetitive conduct undertaken by Netflix,

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tends to cut against the conclusion that Blockbuster’s decision to meet Netflix’s price in the

fall of 2005 was somehow a direct result of Netflix and/or Walmart’s anticompetitive

conduct. See e.g., SAC, ¶¶ 59, 66 (alleging Blockbuster’s entry into the market and

immediate and subsequent attempts to undercut Netflix’s price reductions). 

Similarly, while plaintiffs newly suggest that the purportedly unlawful agreement

between Netflix and Wal-Mart may have “leaked” prior to May 19, 2005, plaintiffs never

directly allege that Blockbuster itself was aware of the agreement, such that the court could

reasonably infer that any decision to test or increase price to match that of Netflix, would

have been precipitated by the defendants’ unlawful conduct. And while plaintiffs have also

revised their allegations to decrease the time lag between the announcement of the May

19, 2005 agreement and Blockbuster’s decision to increase its subscription price to match

Netflix, these allegations, of this decreased time lag do not directly respond to the question

whether Blockbuster’s decision to increase subscription price was directly caused by

defendants’ anticompetitive conduct. 

 In short, plaintiffs’ revised allegations may very well target and address each

individual deficiency highlighted by the court previously, and furthermore may go so far as

to plead, in essence, a ‘but for’ causal link insofar as defendants’ conduct and plaintiffs’

injury is concerned (e.g., without Blockbuster’s practice of meeting and/or exceeding

Netflix’s pricing, Blockbuster would not have sought to raise its $14.99 price to match

Netflix’s $17.99 price in August 2005). Nonetheless, the court continues to have doubts as

to whether the allegations as a whole set forth a theory that provides a sufficiently direct

link between defendants’ allegedly anticompetitive conduct, and plaintiffs’ injuries. For

even if plaintiffs have adequately alleged a ‘but for’ link, it seems to the court that plaintiffs

may have run headlong into the “conceptually more difficult question ‘of which persons

have sustained injuries too remote [from an antitrust violation] to give them standing to sue

for damages under § 4.'” Blue Shield of Virginia v. McCready, 457 U.S. 465, 476 (1982). 

If, for example, the well-established practice of meeting or surpassing a competitor’s price

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were to give rise to the inference that any price increase undertaken pursuant to such a

practice is directly attributable to the conduct undertaken by competitors for causation

purposes – even when the competitors’ conduct is allegedly unlawful – then the court is at

pains to imagine a situation in which a competitor’s unlawful conduct wouldn’t be deemed a

material and direct cause of a co-competitor’s price increase for purposes of umbrella

liability standing. As the McCready court noted, although an antitrust violation “may be

expected to cause ripples of harm to flow through the Nation's economy,” there is

nonetheless “a point beyond which the wrongdoer should not be held liable.” See 457 U.S.

at 477. Query whether plaintiffs are beyond that point here. 

The court’s uneasiness with plaintiffs’ revised theory, and its ability to satisfy the

‘directness’ standard set forth in AGC, is further buttressed by the fact that despite the

court’s admonition to plaintiffs in its previous order, plaintiffs have not come forward with

any legal authority to support their theory. The court recognizes the possibility that such

authorities may not exist. 

Ultimately, however, the court’s significant reservations notwithstanding, the court

concludes that plaintiffs’ theory of injury is nonetheless sufficiently ‘direct’ (albeit minimally

direct) to satisfy AGC standards, and to permit plaintiffs to proceed past the pleading stage. 

There is, after all, no case law directly on point with the present factual scenario that has

been advanced by either party dictating the court’s conclusion. And it is at least possible

that an evidentiary record in the action would permit plaintiffs to flesh out the allegations

currently pled, such that a more direct causal link between defendants’ conduct and

plaintiffs’ injury might be stated. Discovery may, for example, prove the precise nature of

Blockbuster’s pricing in relation to Netflix’s, or may demonstrate Blockbuster’s awareness

of the purportedly unlawful market agreement well prior to the agreement’s public

announcement, as well as the timing and substance of Blockbuster’s response thereto –

such that the court could conclude not only that defendants’ anticompetitive conduct was

not only the direct cause of Blockbuster’s eventual price hike, but also that plaintiffs are

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within the realm of injured parties for which defendants should justly be held responsible. 

Likewise, the remaining factors implicating the speculative nature of plaintiffs’ injury

and harm, as well as the complexity in apportioning damages, will likely rise or fall upon the

eventual outcome in connection with the ‘directness of the injury’ factor. Thus, these

factors, too, justify an order allowing plaintiffs’ action to go forward at this time. 

In so ruling, the court emphasizes that it continues to have strong doubts about

plaintiffs’ ultimate ability to prove the directness of their injury. Nonetheless, the court

would prefer to have a clear evidentiary picture painted before it, in order to ascertain the

actual viability of plaintiffs’ claims. At this juncture, however, plaintiffs’ revised allegations

and the state of the cited law are simply too uncertain to allow the court to determine with

confidence that plaintiffs have failed to meet the ‘plausibility’ standard contemplated by

Twombly. See 550 U.S. at 558-59. Accordingly, defendants’ motion to dismiss the second

amended complaint is DENIED. 

The court will permit defendants to file an early summary judgment motion limited to

antitrust standing should discovery result in an evidentiary record which would enable the

court to answer some of the questions raised above. The parties will still be permitted to

file motions for summary judgment at the close of discovery, as provided in the pretrial

order. 

C. Conclusion 

For the foregoing reasons, defendants’ motion to dismiss the second amended

complaint is DENIED. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: July 6, 2010 ______________________________

PHYLLIS J. HAMILTON

United States District Judge

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