Court Opinion

ID: 9463180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:59:54.556263+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:57.890289
License: Public Domain

ROSENN, Circuit Judge
(concurring and dissenting).
I agree with and join in the majority disposition of the monopoly issue in this case. I am constrained, however, to dissent from part IV of the majority opinion disposing of Cromar’s claim for conspiracy in restraint of trade under section 1 of the Sherman Act. I would affirm the district court’s judgment granting Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation and Atlantic Richfield Company a directed verdict as to this phase of the case pursuant to Rule 50(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
I recognize the well-established principle that on a motion for a directed verdict in favor of the defendants, the plaintiff is entitled to have the evidence considered in a light most favorable to it and to have the benefit of all inferences which can be drawn reasonably from the record. So viewed, I believe the district court correctly held the evidence introduced together with the additional evidence proffered was insufficient to support a verdict of the jury that the defendants had conspired to restrain trade in terminating plaintiff’s contract to convert lumber into finished wood fillets.
In addition to the evidence introduced and tendered relating to breach of contract, the district court provided the plaintiff with ever opportunity to develop the additional evidence it intended to offer to support its case. He plainly stated to' counsel that if they had “something more than the breach *513of contract to prove that the defendants conspired to put plaintiff out of business,” he was “perfectly willing to hear it.” In response to this specific invitation, plaintiff’s counsel responded that most of their evidence concerned breaches of contract and “activity and conduct under that contract.” The only other evidence upon which it relied was the six items of proof delineated in part IV of the majority’s opinion.
None of those items of proof, even if one were to extend the most generous construction in favor of Cromar, would support a claim of “contract, combination, . or conspiracy” in restraint of trade. Concerted action is an essential ingredient of a section 1 claim; a restraint of trade per se does not constitute a violation. Modern Home Institute, Inc. v. Hartford Acc. & Ind. Co., 513 F.2d 102, 108-109 (2d Cir. 1975); Delaware Valley Marine Supply Co. v. American Tobacco Co., 297 F.2d 199, 207 (3d Cir. 1961). Even if Cromar’s evidence were sufficient to show an anticompetitive intent, there is a complete absence of proof as to a conspiracy on the part of ARCO and NUMEC.
I do not disagree with the majority’s invocation of the Perm a Mufñers decision and the “intra-corporate conspiracy” doctrine in this case where a parent and its wholly owned subsidiary are alleged to have conspired. I do, however, take issue with its appraisal of Cromar’s evidence of the existence of such a conspiracy. The fact that one company is a subsidiary of another is not in itself evidence of concerted action sufficient to support a jury finding of conspiracy. Although proof of conspiracy can be developed by circumstantial evidence, plaintiffs “still had the burden of adducing sufficient evidence from which the jury could conclude on the basis of reasonable inferences and not mere speculation, that defendants’ refusals to deal with them were the product of concerted action between them.” Venzie Corp. v. United States Mineral Products Co., Inc., 521 F.2d 1309, 1312 (3d Cir. 1975).
I believe the district judge was correct in granting a directed verdict on Cromar’s section 1 claim and in refusing to subject the parties to an inevitably prolonged presentation of evidence whose legal insufficiency to establish an antitrust violation was apparent.