Opinion ID: 493880
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Risk of Duplicative Recoveries or Complex Apportionment of Damages.

Text: 29 In Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, 431 U.S. 720, 97 S.Ct. 2061, 52 L.Ed.2d 707 (1977), the Supreme Court held that an indirect customer could not bring a treble-damage action for price increases deriving from sales to its suppliers in violation of the antitrust laws. Recognizing that multiple recovery should be avoided, it noted that allowance of indirect purchaser suits would compel apportionment of the recovery. Besides adding complexity to the case, this apportionment would cut down the direct purchasers' recovery and diffuse the incentive to bring treble-damage actions. Id. at 735-48, 97 S.Ct. at 2069-76; see also Associated General, 459 U.S. at 544, 103 S.Ct. at 911-12. 30 The present case raises a similar risk of leading either to multiple recovery or to unduly complex litigation. In Illinois Brick, the potential conflict was over a single amount, the illegal overcharge; to avoid multiple recoveries, it would be necessary to divide that amount between direct and indirect purchasers on some consistent theory governing the extent to which direct purchasers would pass on the overcharge and the damage recovery. Separate litigations would allow direct purchasers to recover on one set of assumptions as to elasticities, market structure and market behavior, indirect purchasers to recover on another set. See 431 U.S. at 741-42, 97 S.Ct. at 2072-73. This would generate powerful claims for joinder of all potential plaintiffs under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19, massively complicating the litigation. Id. at 737-41, 97 S.Ct. at 2070-72. 31 Here, concededly, there is no common fund in the sense of the overcharge at stake in Illinois Brick. But the problem of conflicting premises is no different. In Laker I, Laker's creditors, stockholders, and attorneys sought damages premised on a projection of high profits for Laker. In Laker II, Laker's passengers asserted damages premised on Laker's fares being exceptionally low. Laker's employees now seek to collect damages premised on plentiful jobs and generous salaries and benefits. Without joinder it is impossible to avoid liability on inconsistent theories; with joinder would come increased complexity and litigation costs for the directly injured parties. 32 One may, indeed, conceptualize the case as involving claims on a single quantity of wealth--the increased consumer and producer surplus that a thriving Laker would have generated. 14 The risks of duplicative recoveries on inconsistent theories are in no substantive way different from those risks in Illinois Brick. The Court regarded this concern as relevant even to Associated General, where the obscurity of the claim left some uncertainty as to just how plaintiffs' claims would relate to those of the direct victims. 459 U.S. at 544-45, 103 S.Ct. at 911-12. Here, more clearly than there, allowance of the suit would load the direct victims' action with costly excess baggage. 33 Nor is it an answer that Laker and its passengers have already settled their claims. Standing must be determined by uniform principles, not by accidents of sequence. A rule opening the door to marginal plaintiffs after settlement would virtually force defendants not to settle until all possible complainants were brought into the action or until the statute of limitations had run. Such behavior would clearly make it more difficult to prosecute antitrust violations and undermine[ ] the effectiveness of treble-damages suits. Associated General, 459 U.S. at 545, 103 S.Ct. at 912. Besides, allowance of the present suit would unequivocally expose defendants to the risk of multiple liability, an alternative the Court has emphatically rejected. Illinois Brick, 431 U.S. at 730-31, 97 S.Ct. at 2066-67 (citing Hawaii v. Standard Oil Co., 405 U.S. 251, 264, 92 S.Ct. 885, 892, 31 L.Ed.2d 184 (1972)). See also id. at 731 n. 11, 97 S.Ct. at 2067 n. 11 (recognizing that risk of multiple liability is particularly great where some parties settle). 34 The controlling factors under Associated General compel the conclusion that plaintiffs lack standing.