Opinion ID: 378026
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Suit for Entire Amount of Overcharge

Text: 16 Determining what portion of the illegal overcharge was passed on to Royal Printing and what part was absorbed by the middlemen would involve all the evidentiary and economic complexities that Illinois Brick clearly forbade. 431 U.S. at 731-32, 737-45, 97 S.Ct. at 2067, 2070-74. Thus Royal Printing cannot sue the appellees only for the portion of the overcharge that was passed on to it through the wholesaling subsidiary and division. 17 The only alternatives are to allow Royal Printing to sue the appellees for the entire amount of the overcharge to the wholesalers, or not to allow Royal Printing to sue the appellees at all. 18 Because, as we have already shown, as a practical matter the direct purchasers here will never sue, barring Royal Printing's suit would close off every avenue for private enforcement of the antitrust laws in such cases. This would be intolerable. 19 Allowing Royal Printing to sue for the full overcharge, on the other hand, creates the possibility that Royal Printing might recover an amount, trebled, that exceeds its actual damages (because market forces probably forced the middlemen to absorb part of the overcharge); to that extent this alternative affords Royal Printing an opportunity for a windfall gain. But this is no more than was approved in Hanover Shoe, where the plaintiff was allowed to recover its full damages even though it had mitigated its damages by passing part of the excessive costs on to its customers. Hanover Shoe teaches that in such situations there is nothing wrong with the plaintiff winning a windfall gain, so long as the antitrust laws are vindicated and the defendant does not suffer multiple liability, with its potential for windfall loss (i.e., the defendant would be forced to pay out a greater amount, trebled, than its antitrust violation grossed for it). 8 20 Because there is a sufficiently small risk of multiple liability here, and because without a pass-on theory the case would not involve Illinois Brick -style complexities, we hold that Royal Printing may sue the appellees for the entire overcharge.