Opinion ID: 3032223
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: Realtor Arleen Freeman subscribes to a regional real-estate Multiple Listing Service (MLS) run by Sandicor, a corporation owned and managed by various local realtors’ associations. Charging that Sandicor’s MLS subscription fees were fixed at artificially high levels, Freeman sued Sandicor, the realtors’ associations, and some of their officers and directors under the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1, 2. The defendants in that litigation wrongfully withheld information in discovery. After the misconduct came to light, the district court granted new discovery and sanctioned the defendants, but it nonetheFREEMAN v. LASKY, HAAS & COHLER 7061 less granted their motion for summary judgment. On appeal, we affirmed in part and reversed in part. Freeman v. San Diego Ass’n of Realtors, 322 F.3d 1133 (9th Cir. 2003). Freeman now brings a new antitrust action against some of the executives, lawyers and law firms of the associations involved in the previous litigation, and against the state realtors’ association directly, based on the discovery misconduct that, she claims, involved subornation of perjury and intimidation of witnesses. Freeman argues that, by stretching out the litigation, the discovery misconduct postponed the day of judgment and thus extended Sandicor’s price fixing. The district court dismissed the complaint with prejudice for failure to state a claim, based (among other grounds) on the NoerrPennington doctrine. Freeman appeals.1