Opinion ID: 2799318
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Plaintiff‘s Ultimate Burden

Text: The ultimate burden throughout rests with the plaintiff to show that a challenged settlement agreement is anticompetitive. (Bert G. Gianelli Distributing Co. v. Beck & Co. (1985) 172 Cal.App.3d 1020, 1048.) Once the plaintiff has made out a prima facie case that a reverse payment patent settlement is anticompetitive, however, the plaintiff thereafter need only show that any procompetitive justifications proffered by the defendants are unsupportable. (See Polygram Holding, Inc. v. FTC, supra, 416 F.3d at pp. 37–38.) The ultimate question in reverse payment settlement cases is whether an agreement involves ―significant unjustified anticompetitive consequences.‖ (Actavis, supra, 570 U.S. at p. ___ [186 L.Ed.2d at p. 364, 133 S.Ct. at p. 2238].) The prima facie case requires the plaintiff to eliminate the possibility that litigation costs or other products or services could explain the consideration paid the generic. If a plaintiff does so and thereafter can dispel each additional justification the defendants put forward to explain the consideration, the conclusion follows that the settlement payment must include, in part, consideration for additional delay in entering the market. That payment for delay is condemned by the 45 Cartwright Act, as by federal antitrust law, and its purchase as part of a settlement agreement is an unlawful restraint of trade.