Opinion ID: 2087240
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Market participant requirement

Text: In upholding the district court, the court of appeals did not rely on the AGC factors but stated that [f]ederal courts have consistently held that an antitrust plaintiff must be a consumer or competitor in the market restrained by alleged antitrust violations. Lorix, 720 N.W.2d at 18. The two federal appellate decisions cited by the court of appeals do not compel us to impose a market-participant requirement. The court of appeals quoted Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U.S. 477, 489, 97 S.Ct. 690, 50 L.Ed.2d 701 (1977), for the proposition that to recover, a plaintiff must suffer an injury of the type the antitrust laws were intended to prevent and that flows from that which makes defendants' acts unlawful. Lorix, 720 N.W.2d at 18-19. It does not follow from this proposition that Minnesota antitrust law provides a remedy only to participants in the immediately restrained market, and Brunswick itself mentioned no such restriction. The court of appeals also cited S.D. Collectibles, Inc. v. Plough, Inc., 952 F.2d 211 (8th Cir.1991). Lorix, 720 N.W.2d at 19. In S.D. Collectibles, Collectibles was the sole representative in a five-state territory for the manufacturer of Zinca, a zinc oxide sun care product. 952 F.2d at 212. When Plough obtained the exclusive right to market Zinca in the territory and Collectibles' agreement was terminated, Collectibles sued Plough, alleging antitrust injury. Id. at 212-13. The court noted that [t]he antitrust laws were designed to protect competition and therefore standing is generally limited to actual market participants, id. at 213, and held that Collectibles lacked standing because it was neither a consumer of Zinca nor a competitor of Plough, id. at 214. Collectibles did not enjoy antitrust protection because it was not a consumer of any product related to the antitrust violation. S.D. Collectibles, whatever its precedential value to this court, cannot be read to foreclose antitrust claims in Minnesota by indirect purchasers of goods manufactured with price-fixed components. Our decision in Philip Morris Inc. further counsels against a rigid market-participant requirement. In Philip Morris Inc., tobacco companies conspired to suppress research on the deleterious effects of smoking, 551 N.W.2d at 492, and we held with little discussion that Blue Cross had standing to sue in antitrust based on the increased amounts it paid for healthcare, id. at 496. But Blue Cross was a participant in neither the cigarette market (the market in which the tobacco companies participated) nor the healthcare research market (the market restrained by the conspiracy). It is no answer to assert, as Crompton does, that Blue Cross participated in, and the tobacco companies manipulated, the healthcare market. The patient services market, in which Blue Cross participated, is distinct from the healthcare research market, which the tobacco companies manipulated. [2] Applying Crompton's expansive method of defining markets, we might find standing by noting that Lorix was injured in the market for rubber-related products, the same market in which Crompton fixed prices. Analysis of the markets involved in an antitrust claim helps assess the relation of the alleged injury to the goals of antitrust law, but the lack of a principled way to define the market restrained by the antitrust violation means that this analysis alone cannot determine whether a plaintiff has antitrust standing.