Court Opinion

ID: 9467407
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:48:00.126352+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:19.941795
License: Public Domain

HOLLOWAY, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I am in agreement with the result in the concluding portion of the majority opinion, namely that the dismissal of the complaint was improper and must be set aside. I must disagree with the conclusions drawn by the majority opinion as to the meaning and effect of McLain v. Real Estate Board of New Orleans, 444 U.S. 232, 100 S.Ct. 502, 62 L.Ed.2d 441, and the continued application of our holding in Wolf v. Jane Phillips Episcopal-Memorial Medical Center, 513 F.2d 684 (10th Cir.).
It does not seem necessary to debate the language in the McLain opinion, which seems quite clear to me. The majority opinion analyzes McLain and the prior decisions thoroughly and then synthesizes them to reach its own conclusion. To me, that has been done by the Supreme Court in McLain, and the Court came down in very clear terms (444 U.S. at 242-43, 100 S.Ct. at 509-510):
To establish the jurisdictional element of a Sherman Act violation it would be sufficient for petitioners to demonstrate a substantial effect on interstate commerce generated by respondents’ brokerage activity. Petitioners need not make the more particularized showing of an effect on interstate commerce caused by the alleged conspiracy to fix commission rates, or by those other aspects of respondents’ activity that are alleged to be unlawful. (Emphasis added).
Again, the Court emphatically pointed out that (id. at 243, 100 S.Ct. at 510):
If establishing jurisdiction required a showing that the unlawful conduct itself had an effect on interstate commerce, jurisdiction would be defeated by a demonstration that the alleged restraint failed to have its intended anticompetitive effect. This is not the rule of our cases.
These pointed affirmative and negative statements and others in McLain make it plain that an antitrust plaintiff simply need not make a particularized showing of an effect on interstate commerce caused by the alleged conspiracy or other illegal acts. The effect of the majority opinion here is to wrongly impose that jurisdictional burden on the plaintiff. I agree with the Ninth Circuit’s conclusion that such a jurisdictional test was rejected in McLain. Western Waste Service v. Universal Waste Control, 616 F.2d 1094, 1096-97, cert. denied, - U.S. -, 101 S.Ct. 205, 66 L.Ed.2d 88. Looking back at the earlier cases and drawing contrary conclusions from them means that we simply downgrade this recent, unanimous and emphatic decision by the Court on the issue.
Further, it is wrong I feel to hold that our Wolf opinion still applies and squares with the McLain decision. In Wolf we affirmed a holding that the complaint was “jurisdictionally deficient,” (513 F.2d at 686), stating that (id. at 687):
We reach the same conclusion in the case at bar; the facts alleged do not support the proposition that the restraint upon plaintiff’s practice causes more than an insubstantial effect upon interstate commerce.
I am convinced that this holding is clearly at odds with the plain meaning of McLain. While reconsidering the cases en banc I am convinced that we should overrule our Wolf *728opinion, which to me is merely recognizing the effect of the McLain decision.
For these reasons I must respectfully dissent from the majority’s interpretation of the McLain opinion, the continued recognition of our Wolf decision, and the disposition sending this case back for further proceedings under a jurisdictional standard which I am convinced is wrong.