Opinion ID: 352548
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the injury issue

Text: 18 In order to make out a private cause of action under the Clayton Act, a plaintiff must prove that he has been or will be injured by some violation of the antitrust laws. 14 Applying the standard defined in First National Bank to the record in this case, we agree with the District Court that appellants' response to appellees' well-supported motion for summary judgment fails to raise any genuine issue of material fact on the question of injury. 19 Appellants' allegations that they are harmed by Chrysler's practices rest on two theories. First appellants allege that Chrysler uses certain aspects of its distribution system the minimum sales responsibility, the regional agents, and the factory dealerships to pressure dealers to sell to fleet purchasers at prices lower than the dealers could otherwise negotiate. In six years of discovery, however, appellants failed to produce credible evidence of any kind from any dealer (including appellants themselves) 15 supporting the inference that Chrysler has used these programs to coerce dealers to charge lower prices to fleet purchasers. In support of its motion for summary judgment Chrysler submitted uncontradicted affidavits and depositions indicating that its dealers retain complete discretion in pricing. 16 More importantly, the record contains unanswered evidence that the real pressure on the dealers to charge lower prices to fleet purchasers results, not from Chrysler's programs, but from the sophistication and buying power of the fleet purchasers and the competition of General Motors and Ford. 17 20 Recognizing the lack of support in the record for their first theory of injury, appellants rely almost exclusively 18 on their second theory: the inherent economic effects of the subsidies and other special programs as set forth in the report of appellants' expert, Professor Richard Staelin. 19 Staelin's report asserts that, according to standard economic theory, these programs inevitably harm the Chrysler dealers in three ways. First, Staelin asserts that the lower prices to the fleet purchasers mean that more new cars will be sold to the fleets, and many of these cars end up soon on the used car market. The presence of more late model used Chryslers on the market allegedly depresses the retail prices for both new and used Chryslers. Second, Staelin claims that if Chrysler could not give the subsidies it would have to lower its wholesale prices to its dealers to maximize its profits. In Staelin's view the subsidy programs thus have the effect of squeezing dealers between higher wholesale prices and lower retail prices. Third, Staelin notes that many fleet purchasers are long-term leasing companies and claims that these companies are in direct competition with Chrysler dealers selling new cars. He then asserts that the dealers are injured in their competition against these leasing companies because the dealers do not receive the subsidies and other benefits granted to the leasing companies. 21 In its motion for summary judgment Chrysler attacked Staelin's theories on several fronts. Using its lengthy deposition of Staelin, Chrysler argued forcefully in the District Court that his theories were abstract speculation and that by his own admission he was unfamiliar with the record in this case. 20 Furthermore, Chrysler asserted that the evidence in the record contradicted rather than supported all of Staelin's predictions of inevitable effects. Appellants' depositions of Chrysler executives revealed that an essential aspect of the fleet programs was to disperse the used cars returned to the market by the fleets so that they would have no significant impact on prices in any particular area. 21 The president of Chrysler stated that, given Chrysler's costs of production, eliminating the subsidy programs would result in increased, rather than decreased, wholesale prices to dealers. 22 Staelin himself admitted that, for all he knew, eliminating the subsidy programs might force Chrysler to close its doors. 23 In response to Staelin's claim that Chrysler dealers are injured because discriminatory discounts and benefits are available to fleet purchasers in the long-term leasing business, Chrysler produced uncontradicted evidence that the same subsidies are available to any Chrysler dealer who chooses to enter the leasing business and that Chrysler offers special promotional advantages to encourage its dealers to enter the leasing market. 24 Finally, Chrysler pointed out that near the end of his deposition Professor Staelin had conceded that he believed Chrysler dealers are better off now profit-wise than they were in '61 or '62,    that they are earning more on the average as a return on investment. 25 22 After considering Chrysler's motion for summary judgment and appellants' response, the District Court dismissed Staelin's theory since his opinion is based solely on speculations and hypotheses and is unsubstantiated by any evidence in the record   . 417 F.Supp. at 272. Consequently, the court held that appellants had failed to submit any credible evidence that they suffered individual injury as a proximate result of the introduction of the fleet allowance programs. Id. 23 On appeal appellants attempt to salvage their expert's opinion by relying on cases applying Rule 703 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, adopted in 1975. 26 This rule was intended to broaden the acceptable bases of expert opinion, but it was not intended, as appellants seem to argue, 27 to make summary judgment impossible whenever a party has produced an expert to support its position. Even Rule 703 requires that the grounds relied on by an expert must be a type reasonably relied upon by experts in the particular field in forming opinions or inferences upon the subject. While appellants claim that Staelin has merely applied standard economic theory to a factual basis which is uncontroverted, 28 it is obvious that Staelin makes unsupported assumptions about the elasticities of demand in various markets 29 and that he virtually ignores the impact of the dominant forces in the automobile market: General Motors and Ford. 30 To hold that Rule 703 prevents a court from granting summary judgment against a party who relies solely on an expert's opinion that has no more basis in or out of the record than Staelin's theoretical speculations would seriously undermine the policies of Rule 56. We are unwilling to impose the fruitless expenses of litigation that would result from such a limitation on the power of a court to grant summary judgment. Cf. Logsdon v. Baker, 170 U.S.App.D.C. 360, 517 F.2d 174 (1975) (per curiam ). 24 The cases cited by appellants accepted reliable statistical model(s) 31 prepared by experts through the intelligent application of statistical and computer techniques 32 as mechanisms to estimate the impact of illegal actions on individual plaintiffs. While appellants in this case claim that their expert has constructed a reliable statistical marketing model to explain and demonstrate the impact of Appellees' subsidy program on the market in which Appellants and other Chrysler dealers operate, reply brief for appellants at 7, this model has never been produced, 33 and we are not willing to send this case to trial on the mere promise that a more substantial showing will be made there. Appellants had nearly six years for discovery and for development and presentation of their expert's theories before the hearing on the summary judgment motion. The District Court allowed wide discovery, including depositions of several top executives of Chrysler Corporation and production of confidential information on profitability and market strategy. Under these circumstances, we agree with the District Court and with the Supreme Court in First National Bank that appellants should not be permitted to get to a jury on the basis of the allegations in their complaint ( ), coupled with the hope that something can be developed at trial in the way of evidence to support those allegations   . 391 U.S. at 289-290, 88 S.Ct. at 1593. 25 Accordingly, the order of the District Court granting summary judgment for appellees is 26 Affirmed.