Court Opinion

ID: 9468379
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:13:23.85051+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:50.605531
License: Public Domain

JAMES DICKSON PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge:
Orna H. Hester, a North Carolina attorney, appeals the grant of summary judgment dismissing his several claims of violations by Martindale-Hubbell, Inc., the American Bar Association (ABA) and the North Carolina State Bar (State Bar) of rights secured to him by the federal constitution and federal and state antitrust statutes in connection with his unsuccessful attempt to advertise in Martindale-Hubbell’s general legal directory. Essentially for reasons stated by the district court, we affirm.
I
The facts, as presented to the district court on the summary judgment record, *434were that the State Bar, with the approval of the North Carolina Supreme Court, had promulgated the North Carolina Code of Professional Responsibility, the provisions of which were substantially identical to the American Bar Association’s Code of Professional Responsibility. At the time the actions that are the subject of this suit took place in late 1973 and early 1974, DR 2-102(A)(6), of the North Carolina Code provided that an attorney could present brief biographical and other specified information in a reputable law list or legal directory and “[a] law list or any directory is conclusively established to be reputable if it is certified by the American Bar Association as being in compliance with its rules and standards.” *
From the late 1930’s until February 1978, the ABA maintained a Standing Committee on Law Lists (Committee) that promulgated rules and standards with which a law list publisher could comply and receive certification by the Committee. Rule and Standard 4 promulgated by the Committee provided that “(t]he publisher of a law list which has received a certificate of compliance from the Committee may rate its listees in a manner not disapproved of by the Committee,” and the Committee also published five rulings to serve as guidelines for any publisher who wished to establish a rating system.
From the inception of this private regulatory scheme, Martindale-Hubbell voluntarily submitted to a review of its publication practices by the Committee and each year received a certificate of compliance from the Committee. In 1977, Martindale-Hubbell’s Legal Directory was listed as one of sixty law lists certified to be reputable by the Committee. It was, however, the only one listed in the category of “general legal directory.”
The Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory is divided into two sections. In the geographical section, Martindale-Hubbell undertakes to list without charge the name of every lawyer, law firm and professional corporation in the United States. In addition to the lawyer’s name, these individual alphabetical listings include, in a coded format in fine print, information such as years of birth and admission to the bar, college and law school attended, address, and firm connection or corporate or government employment. Ratings, based upon a system approved by the Committee, are also included with a large number of the individual and firm listings.
The second section of the directory is a biographical one in which lawyers may pay to have published advertisements that are euphemistically referred to by Martindale-Hubbell as “professional cards.” These “professional cards” appear in boldface print and may include a broad array of biographical data in addition to that found in the geographical section together with information about areas of practice, references and representative clients. In order to subscribe to publication of a “professional card” in the biographical section, however, an attorney must have received a certain rating under Martindale-Hubbell’s system or be associated with a firm that has obtained that distinction.
In August 1973, Hester requested information from Martindale-Hubbell concerning publication of a “professional card” in Martindale-Hubbell’s 1974 edition. The publisher refused to supply this information to Hester, however, because he was ineligible to have a “professional card” published in the directory inasmuch as he had not yet received a rating.
Hester then addressed letters of formal complaint to the State Bar and the ABA in which he alleged that the management and contents of the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory were in violation of DR2-102(A)(6). The State Bar responded that, since the ABA had issued a certificate of compliance *435to Martindale-Hubbell, Hester’s complaint was one properly directed to that organization. Hester subsequently received a reply from the Committee stating that Martin-dale-Hubbell had in no way violated the Committee’s rules and standards for law lists in refusing to publish Hester’s “professional card.” Hester then filed the present suit.
In the first count of his complaint Hester alleged that, by effectively sanctioning Martindale-Hubbell’s refusal to publish his “professional card” in the biographical section of its directory, the ABA and the State Bar combined with Martindale-Hubbell to exclude Hester from the market for this form of legal advertising in violation of section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1. In a second count he alleged that Martin-dale-Hubbell, with the cooperation of the ABA, monopolized or attempted to monopolize the market for advertising in legal directories of Martindale-Hubbell’s comprehensiveness and scope of distribution in violation of section 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 2.
In third and fourth counts, incorporating by reference the allegations of concerted anticompetitive activity, Hester alleged that this activity also constituted a violation of N.C.Gen.Stat. § 75-1, the North Carolina analogue of the Sherman Act, and of N.C. Gen.Stat. § 75 — 1.1, the North Carolina analogue of section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45. Finally, in counts five and six of the complaint Hester alleged that the State Bar, by condoning the allegedly discriminatory refusal of Martindale-Hubbell to publish his “professional card” and refusing to consider his complaint against that publisher, had violated his rights to equal protection and due process of law under the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution and article 1, section 19 of the North Carolina Constitution.
Following two years of discovery in which Hester received responses to his interrogatories, requests for admissions and requests for production of documents from all three defendants, Martindale-Hubbell and the State Bar moved for summary judgment. Upon review of the summary judgment record, a magistrate recommended denial of the motions. The district court, however, rejected this recommendation, granted the motions and, sua sponte, dismissed the claims against the ABA.
In a thorough memorandum opinion the court concluded that Hester could not succeed on his allegation of a violation of section 1 of the Sherman Act because he had failed to present sufficient evidence of a conspiracy or concerted activity. Hester v. Martindale-Hubbell, Inc., 493 F.Supp. 335, 337-40 (E.D.N.C.1980). Turning to Hester’s allegation that Martindale-Hubbell was a monopolist in violation of section 2 of the Sherman Act, the court concluded that on the record presented Martindale-Hubbell had not unlawfully attained or maintained any monopoly position it might have acquired. Id. at 340-41. Having found no evidence showing concerted activity in restraint of trade in violation of the Sherman Act, the court also rejected Hester’s claims under N.C.Gen.Stat. §§ 75-1 and 75-1.1. Id. at 341. Finally, the district court rejected as moot Hester’s prayer for injunctive and declaratory relief declaring DR2102(A)(6) violative of the United States and North Carolina Constitutions and ordering the State Bar to consider his complaint because that disciplinary rule had since been amended to abolish the certification process of which Hester complained. Id. at 341-42.
II
We agree with the district court’s ultimate disposition of Hester’s claims and, with one exception, with the reasoning the district court used to reach that result. We think that Hester’s claim of an illegal combination in restraint of trade between the three defendants failed on a basis other than that essentially relied upon by the district court.
In rejecting this claim the district court relied primarily on the Supreme Court’s decision in Albrecht v. Herald Co., 390 U.S. 145, 88 S.Ct. 869, 19 L.Ed.2d 998 (1968), and *436the Third Circuit’s later analysis of Albrecht in Harold Friedman, Inc. v. Kroger Co., 581 F.2d 1068 (3d Cir. 1978). We think that those cases, however, are inapposite. In both Albrecht and Harold Friedman, Inc., an express agreement was conceded, and the question was whether that agreement was incidental or essential to a restraint of trade. In the present case, on the other hand, there was clearly a restraint of trade in the form of restricted access to advertising, and the dispositive question presented on the summary judgment record was whether that restraint was the result of the concerted activity of the ABA, the State Bar and Martindale-Hubbell or merely the unilateral action of Martindale-Hubbell. We hold that the requisite concerted activity was not established on the record presented.
Both the Supreme Court, see United States v. Colgate Co., 250 U.S. 300, 39 S.Ct. 465, 63 L.Ed. 992 (1919), and much more recently this court, see Virginia Academy of Clinical Psychologists v. Blue Shield of Virginia, 624 F.2d 476, 483 (4th Cir. 1980), have recognized, in considering antitrust claims, that a business may unilaterally choose those with whom it will conduct business. Courts considering claims of violations of the antitrust laws, of course, must be “sensitive to the realities of the marketplace,” id. at 481, and therefore have extended the concept of concerted activity far beyond the classic case of an actual agreement to engage in a common course of conduct. But we are satisfied that this case, as presented for decision on the summary judgment record, lies beyond the pale of even the most liberal extension of the concept of concerted activity.
This is not a case in which those at a lower level of competition have conspired to force a supplier at a higher level of competition to impose some restraint. See, e. g., United States v. General Motors Corp., 384 U.S. 127, 86 S.Ct. 1321, 16 L.Ed.2d 415 (1966). Nor is it a case in which a supplier at a higher level of competition has coerced those at a lower level of competition to acquiesce in some anticompetitive endeavor. See, e. g., United States v. Parke, Davis & Co., 362 U.S. 29, 80 S.Ct. 503, 4 L.Ed.2d 505 (1960).
Instead, Hester’s proferred proof shows at best only that the State Bar and the ABA had undertaken to establish standards and rules for certain aspects of law list publishing and had discouraged attorneys from listing themselves with those publishers who did not comply with those rules and standards, that the ABA had established guidelines for the rating of lawyers by law lists and that Martindale-Hubbell had complied with those guidelines and had accordingly received a certificate of compliance from the ABA. There was no showing on the record, nor was it ever alleged, however, that the ABA required, or even suggested, that Martindale-Hubbell condition the right to advertise in its publication on1 the attainment of a certain rating, which was the restraint of trade alleged in this case. Thus, at best, Hester’s proffered proof established only that the ABA and the State Bar did not prevent Martindale-Hubbell from refusing to publish his advertisement when they arguably had the influence to do so. Such evidence simply does not show a concerted refusal to deal within contemplation of the laws invoked.

AFFIRMED.

 DR2-102(A)(6) was amended in 1978 to delete the reference to certification by the ABA. Thus, the only standard that remains for establishing the reputability of a law list is the statement in the rule that “[a] law list or any directory is not reputable if its management or contents are likely to be misleading or injurious to the public or to the profession.” DR2102(A)(5).