Court Opinion

ID: 9676146
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:16:00.464432+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:44.642897
License: Public Domain

GAMMAGE, Justice,
joined by SPECTOR, Justice,
dissenting.
The dispositive issue here is whether the Texas Free Enterprise and Antitrust Act (“Antitrust Act”) precludes plaintiffs as indi*514rect purchasers from bringing suit for misrepresentation, fraud, price-fixing, and market monopolization against infant formula manufacturers under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act (“DTPA”). Because the Antitrust Act is not the exclusive remedy for these practices and does not preclude consumers from bringing suit under the DTPA, I respectfully dissent.
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The majority concludes that any action barred by Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, 431 U.S. 720, 97 S.Ct. 2061, 52 L.Ed.2d 707 (1977), should similarly be barred even if the claimants assert a DTPA and not an antitrust claim. It reasons that under Illinois Brick federal antitrust law prohibits suits by indirect purchasers, and that, because the Texas antitrust statute is identical to the federal statute, Texas antitrust law also prohibits suits by indirect purchasers. The majority contends that if the DTPA allows indirect purchasers to sue for monopolistic practices, then it irreconcilably conflicts with the Antitrust Act. It does not suggest that any particular provision of the Antitrust Act conflicts -with the DTPA, arguing instead that the legislature intended the Antitrust Act to be consistent with federal statutes.
The Antitrust Act by its own terms does not conflict with the DTPA, and the majority’s argument that the Antitrust Act is the exclusive remedy for allegations which may sound in both antitrust and DTPA conflicts with the cumulative remedy provisions of both the Antitrust Act and the DTPA. The Antitrust Act provides that “[t]he provisions of this Act are cumulative of each other and of any other provision of law of this state in effect relating to the same subject.” Tex. Bus. & Com.Code § 15.02(a) (emphasis added). The DTPA also provides: “The provisions of this subchapter are not exclusive. The remedies provided in this subchapter are in addition to any other procedures or remedies provided for in any other law.” Id. § 17.43 (emphasis added).
Had the legislature intended that all anti-competitive conduct be actionable exclusively under the Antitrust Act it would have said so with specific language. Instead, the statute provides just the opposite. The intent that the Antitrust Act not be exclusive even when in conflict with another law is demonstrated by its legislative history. As originally introduced, Senate Bill 397, which enacted the state’s antitrust act, provided that “[wjhenever the application of any provision of this Act conflicts with the application of any other law of this State, the provisions of this Act shall prevail.” The legislature deleted this language before final passage. “[Tjhe deletion of a provision in a pending bill discloses the legislative intent to reject the proposal.” Camacho v. Samaniego, 831 S.W.2d 804, 814 (Tex.1992) (quoting Smith v. Baldwin, 611 S.W.2d 611, 616-617 (Tex.1980)). Not only did the legislature reject the provision, it went even further to adopt an alternative provision expressly making the Antitrust Act cumulative. Moreover, had the legislature intended to exclude DTPA coverage for conduct potentially violating the state antitrust act, it would have done so under the “exemptions” provision of the DTPA, which states the conduct and class of defendants exempted by the DTPA. Tex.Bus. & Com.Code § 17.49. The majority circumvents clear legislative purpose and intent under the guise of statutory construction. This Court has denounced such practices:
[Courts] are not free to rewrite the statutes to reach a result [they] might consider more desirable, in the name of statutory construction. A court may not write special exceptions into a statute so as to make it inapplicable under certain circumstances not mentioned in the statute.
Public Utility Comm’n v. Cofer, 754 S.W.2d 121, 124 (Tex.1988) (citations omitted). Courts are admonished to “take statutes as they find them ... giving full effect to all of its terms.” Republicbank Dallas, N.A. v. Interkal, Inc., 691 S.W.2d 605, 607 (Tex.1985). Here, the majority misconstrues the intent of the DTPA contrary to its previous interpretations.1 The DTPA should be “lib*515erally construed and applied to promote its underlying purposes, which are to protect consumers against false, misleading, and deceptive business practices, unconscionable actions, and breaches of warranty.” Tex.Bus. & Com.Code § 17.44.
The majority’s analysis suffers from the misconception that only one cause of action arises from any particular conduct, and consequently it concludes that plaintiff-interve-nors cannot have a DTPA cause of action because the conduct is also proscribed by the Antitrust Act. But numerous legal theories premised upon the same conduct may overlap, and the legislature may create a number of remedies for that conduct without conflict. For example, a sale of stock may give rise to liability under the Blue Sky Law, Tex.Rev. GivStatANN. arts. 581-1 — 58H1, as well as the DTPA, among other statutory causes. Moreover, an insurer’s failure to pay a claim absent a reasonable basis may give rise to a claim under the insurance code, the DTPA, and common law bad faith, all based on the same conduct. At least one set of commentators notes that state deceptive practices statutes and antitrust laws are ordinarily cumulative:
Numerous states have enacted Unfair and Deceptive Practices Acts, sometimes generically called UDPA or unfair competition acts. Typically, these acts proscribe unfair, unlawful, or deceptive trade practices, and are roughly analogous to § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. 15 U.S.C. § 45. A violation of state antitrust law can also be a violation of these acts which can trigger substantial civil penalties in addition to penalties provided by state antitrust law.
Thomas Greene, et a!., State Antitrust Law and Enforcement, in 32nd Annual Antitrust Law Institute 1991, at 617 (PLI Corp. Law & Practice Course Handbook Series No. B4-6965, 1991) (emphasis added). Likewise, California recognizes its state deceptive trade practices act includes price-fixing violations. See People v. National Ass’n of Realtors, 120 Cal.App.3d 459, 174 Cal.Rptr. 728 (Cal.Ct.App.1981). That court held that California’s unfair trade practices act provision for treble damages could apply to a state antitrust action, because if the legislature intended to exclude an antitrust violation from the act’s provision such an exclusion would have been expressly included in the act itself. Id. at 475, 174 Cal.Rptr. 728.

II.

Plaintiff-intervenors pleaded a cause of action exclusively under the DTPA, alleging that defendants violated sections 17.45(5)(A) and (B), which provide:
(5) “Unconscionable action or course of action” means an act or practice which, to a person’s detriment:
(A) takes advantage of the lack of knowledge, ability, experience or capacity of a person to a grossly unfair degree; or
(B) results in a gross disparity between the value received and consideration paid in a transaction involving transfer of consideration.
TexJBus. & Com Code §§ 17.45(A) & (B). The plaintiff-intervenors allege the defendant-infant formula manufacturers capitalized on the vulnerability and inferior knowledge and bargaining position of consumers by using physicians, nurses, and other hospital staff to indoctrinate parents to use their particular brands of infant formula. These parents were deceived by implicit misrepresentations that the proffered infant formula contained properties different or unique from other, less expensive brands. But federal regulations mandate that all formulas contain the same essential ingredients and nutritional value, and, knowing that parents are sus-*516eeptible to the recommendations of physicians and nurses, the defendants used those professionals as a virtual secondary sales force to influence and defraud consumers into purchasing their products.2 These allegations state classic DTPA violations.
The DTPA generally requires only that a purchaser or prospective purchaser be “connected with” the transaction, and no privity of contract is necessary. Kennedy v. Sale, 689 S.W.2d 890, 892-93 (Tex.1985); Flenniken v. Longview Bank & Trust Co., 661 S.W.2d 705, 707 (Tex.1983); Cameron v. Terrell & Garrett, Inc., 618 S.W.2d 535, 540-41 (Tex.1981). The class which may recover encompasses everyone who seeks to enjoy the benefits of the transaction. Cameron, 618 S.W.2d at 541. Indirect purchasers who are “consumers” have always been allowed to bring DTPA claims without a privity requirement. The majority now conjures the new question whether all DTPA claims will be henceforth subject to a privity requirement which overrules this Courts’ consistent precedents, see Kennedy, 689 S.W.2d at 892-93; Flenniken, 661 S.W.2d at 707; Cameron, 618 S.W.2d at 540-41, and it does so under the chimera of an antitrust analysis to avoid confronting a huge body of established Texas DTPA law.
For the foregoing reasons, I dissent. I would affirm the judgment of the court of appeals that the plaintiff-intervenors stated a viable cause of action for unconscionability under the DTPA.

. A Ross Laboratories Training Manual emphasized the importance of the hospital staff:
Ross Hospital Feeding System is designed to provide an early and convenient means of getting infants started on Similac ... and ultimately sent home with instructions that they continue to use Similac.
Never underestimate the importance of nurses. If they are sold and serviced properly, they can be strong allies. A nurse who supports Ross is like an extra salesperson.