Opinion ID: 1424019
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Enforcement Provision

Text: Private enforcement of certain sections of the Unfair Practices Act, including the section that prohibits price discrimination, is authorized by section 6-2-111(1): Any person, firm, private corporation, municipal corporation, public corporation, or trade association may maintain an action to enjoin a continuance of any act in violation of sections 6-2-103 to 6-2-108 or section 6-2-110 and, if injured thereby, for the recovery of damages. If, in such action, the court finds that the defendant is violating or has violated any of the provisions of [the above stated sections], it shall enjoin the defendant from a continuance of the violations. It shall not be necessary that actual damages to the plaintiff be alleged or proved. In addition to such injunctive relief, the plaintiff in said action shall be entitled to recover from the defendant three times the amount of the actual damages, if any, sustained. In construing this provision we must adhere to established rules of statutory construction. Our primary task in construing a statute is to determine and give effect to the intent of the General Assembly. Kern v. Gebhardt, 746 P.2d 1340, 1344 (Colo.1987); accord Danielson v. Castle Meadows, Inc., 791 P.2d 1106, 1111 (Colo.1990); Engelbrecht v. Hartford Accident & Indem. Co., 680 P.2d 231, 233 (Colo.1984). The construction adopted by the court should be the one that best effectuates the purposes of the legislative scheme. Smith v. Myron Stratton Home, 676 P.2d 1196, 1199 (Colo.1984). To determine intent we initially consult the language of the statute, giving the statutory terms their plain and ordinary meaning. Kern, 746 P.2d at 1344; Trinity Universal Ins. Co. v. Hall, 690 P.2d 227, 230 (Colo.1984). Here, section 6-2-111(1) declares that  any person  may recover damages if that person is injured by a violation of certain sections of the Unfair Practices Act. The plain and ordinary meaning of the word person includes individual consumers. In addition, according to section 2-4-401(8), 1B C.R.S. (1980), unless the statutory context requires otherwise, the term `[p]erson' means individual, corporation, government or governmental subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, or association, or any other legal entity. (Emphasis added.) There is nothing in the context of the statutory scheme to indicate that the term person as used in section 6-2-111(1) should be limited to exclude individual consumers from bringing suit under the statute. Examination of the legislative declaration of purpose is also helpful in determining legislative intent if the operative language is ambiguous. United States v. Wilkinson, 686 P.2d 790, 792 (Colo.1984); see § 2-4-203(1)(g). The legislative declaration of the Unfair Practices Act states that the purpose of the Act is to safeguard the public against the creation or perpetuation of monopolies and to foster and encourage competition by prohibiting unfair and discriminatory practices by which fair and honest competition is destroyed or prevented. This article shall be liberally construed so that its beneficial purposes may be subserved. § 6-2-102. The Unfair Practices Act was thus enacted primarily to protect the public and encourage competition. Consistent with these purposes, section 6-2-111(1) should be construed to grant standing to individual consumers who can show that they have been injured by a violation of the Act, because such an interpretation permits comprehensive private enforcement of the Act. By encouraging consumer enforcement of the Unfair Practices Act, we induce potential violators to reevaluate the risk associated with transgressing the requirements of the statute. See Obstetrical & Gynecological Assocs. v. Landig, 129 Wis.2d 362, 384 N.W.2d 719, 724 (1986). Section 6-2-111(1) has a federal counterpart in section 4(a) of the Clayton Act. 15 U.S.C. § 15(a) (1991 Supp.). In other contexts we have indicated that federal and state antitrust statutes serve complementary purposes and, in view of their common goals of preserving free competition and protecting the public against illegal restraints of trade, the antitrust decisions of the United States Supreme Court are entitled to careful consideration in determining the meaning and scope of [Colorado antitrust statutes]. People v. North Ave. Furniture & Appliance, Inc., 645 P.2d 1291, 1293 n. 3 (Colo.1982). We therefore find it significant that section 4(a) of the Clayton Act has been interpreted to permit consumer standing to bring suits for antitrust violations. The federal standing provision is similar, but not identical, to the Colorado provision. It states that [e]xcept as provided in subsection (b) of this section [limiting recovery by a foreign state], any person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws may sue therefor ... and shall recover threefold the damages by him sustained, and the cost of suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee.... Clayton Act § 4(a), 15 U.S.C. § 15(a) (1991 Supp.). In determining what persons have standing to bring suit under this provision, it is first necessary to consider the nature of the injury that must be alleged. The United States Supreme Court has interpreted section 4(a) to require proof of more than just an injury causally linked to the antitrust violation. The Court has concluded that [p]laintiffs must prove antitrust injury, which is to say injury of the type the antitrust laws were intended to prevent and that flows from that which makes defendants' acts unlawful. The injury should reflect the anticompetitive effect either of the violation or of anticompetitive acts made possible by the violation. It should, in short, be the type of loss that the claimed violations ... would be likely to cause. Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U.S. 477, 489, 97 S.Ct. 690, 697, 50 L.Ed.2d 701 (1977) (quoting Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, 395 U.S. 100, 125, 89 S.Ct. 1562, 1577, 23 L.Ed.2d 129 (1969)). In adopting the antitrust injury requirement, the Court concluded that in the absence of a clear statutory command, it was necessary to interpret the statute to require more than merely a loss causally linked to the presence of a violator in the market because such an interpretation would divorce[ ] antitrust recovery from the purposes of the antitrust laws. Id. 429 U.S. at 487, 97 S.Ct. at 696. We agree with the reasoning in Brunswick that absent clear language in the statute the injury alleged by a plaintiff bringing suit for a violation of the Unfair Practices Act must be of the type the statute was intended to prevent. [9] Such an interpretation, however, does not prevent consumers from bringing suit to enforce the antitrust laws. As was pointed out by the Court in Brunswick, the legislative history of the federal treble damage provision indicates that the provision was conceived of primarily as a remedy for `[t]he people of the United States as individuals,' especially consumers. Brunswick, 429 U.S. at 486 n. 10, 97 S.Ct. at 696 n. 10 (quoting 21 Cong.Rec. 1767-1768 (1890) (remarks of Sen. George)). In Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U.S. 330, 339, 99 S.Ct. 2326, 2331, 60 L.Ed.2d 931 (1979), the Court specifically held that a consumer alleging a wrongful deprivation of her money as a result of illegal price fixing had been injured in her property within the meaning of section 4(a) of the Clayton Act. [10] We therefore hold that if consumers can show that they have been injured as a result of an antitrust violation specified in section 6-2-111(1), and the injury is the type of injury that the particular antitrust statutory provision was designed to prevent, then consumers may maintain an action for damages under section 6-2-111(1). This holding is in accord with a number of jurisdictions that have addressed the issue of consumer standing to sue for antitrust violations under similar statutes. [11] See Ai v. Frank Huff Agency, Ltd., 61 Haw. 607, 607 P.2d 1304 (1980) (consumers may bring suit for violation of statute prohibiting unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive business practices); Mason v. Mortgage America, Inc., 114 Wash.2d 842, 792 P.2d 142 (1990) (consumers who suffer injury can sue for violation of statute prohibiting unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive business acts if there is a causal link between such prohibited methods or acts and the injury suffered); New Jersey Chiropractic Society v. Radiological Society, 156 N.J.Super. 365, 383 A.2d 1182 (Ct.Ch. Div.1978) (consumers permitted to sue for violation of New Jersey Antitrust Act where they allege that defendants combined and conspired to monopolize trade in the delivery of health care services and consumers suffered injury in the form of increased costs for services); Landig, 384 N.W.2d 719 (customer of interior decorator permitted to bring suit for violation of statute prohibiting payment of secret rebates that injured or tended to injure competitors or destroyed or tended to destroy competition where decorator obtained secret rebates from supplier but did not pass savings on to customer). In light of our holding that consumers may bring an action for damages under section 6-2-111(1) upon meeting certain requirements, we must analyze the particular violation alleged by the consumers in this casearea price discrimination under section 6-2-103to determine whether the plaintiffs have alleged an injury of the type this particular provision was designed to prevent. [12]