Opinion ID: 489290
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Yardstick Approach.

Text: 30 At the time of the Journal's refusal to accept classified advertisements from rental referral businesses, Home Placement was a fledgling new business attempting to establish a foothold in the Rhode Island rental referral market. Due to the monopolistic behavior of the Journal, Home Placement operated as planned for only a few short weeks and ultimately failed in less than a year. Thus, to prove the amount of lost profits suffered as a result of the defendant's antitrust violation, Home Placement cannot rely on past earnings patterns or projections. 7 Instead, it must attempt to measure its damages with reference to the performance of one or more closely comparable firms in the same industry that, unburdened by the proscribed anticompetitive activity, successfully managed to earn profits. See Jay Edwards, Inc. v. New England Toyota Distributor, 708 F.2d 814, 821 n. 6 (1st Cir.1983); Framington Dowel, 421 F.2d at 82 & n. 48; see also Park v. El Paso Board of Realtors, 764 F.2d 1053, 1068 (5th Cir.1985). Central to this so-called yardstick approach to proving antitrust damages is the requirement the plaintiff identify a sufficiently comparable firm (the yardstick) against which it can measure its quantum of damages. Cases employing this approach have recognized that product, firm, and market comparability are all relevant factors in the selection of a proper yardstick and have also cautioned that the yardstick firm must be unaffected, one way or the other, by the defendant's antitrust violation. See, e.g., Farmington Dowel, 421 F.2d at 82 n. 48 (describing various factors affecting comparability). 31 Thus, in a case such as this one, a threshold question is whether there is ample evidence in the record as to the comparability of the plaintiff's business and the yardstick firm as to permit a legitimate comparison by the trier of fact. See Jay Edwards, 708 F.2d at 821 n. 6. If this question is resolved in favor of the plaintiff, then the trier of fact must proceed to calculate the amount of damages based on reasonable inferences drawn from the evidence and the defendant, whose wrongful conduct caused or contributed to the uncertainty of the damages sustained, cannot protest that such a measurement of damages is too imprecise. See Wallace Motor Sales, 780 F.2d at 1062 n. 4 (citing Jay Edwards, 708 F.2d at 821; Bigelow, 327 U.S. at 251, 66 S.Ct. at 574). If, however, the question is resolved in favor of the defendant, then the plaintiff is entitled to nominal damages at most. 32