Court Opinion

ID: 9488595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:49:36.263808+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:58.643079
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
This is a difficult case. Much of the relevant case law and the various guides to standing it contains may be read at least superficially to support the result reached by the majority. The alleged injury here is “indirect” in the sense that Serfecz is not a *604competitor in the retail grocery market nor, obviously, a consumer. Yet the economic reality is that Serfecz has suffered a more calculable and a more substantial injury from Jewel’s allegedly anti-competitive conduct than would a plaintiff whose injuries were in theory direct. In fact, if Serfecz’s suit fails for lack of standing, there is not much realistic hope of anyone else’s taking up the cudgels. This is certainly a relevant, though not necessarily dispositive, factor in the analysis.
It is unlikely that a grocery store competitor (or here potential competitor) of Jewel would challenge Jewel’s conduct in retaining its hold on its abandoned store. With all the thousands of possible locations available in the Chicago area, it is doubtful that a competitor would undertake an expensive and prolonged lawsuit to gain entry to one of them — and one already subject to Jewel’s strong competition, at that. This would be true even if, as is alleged here, Jewel played dog in the manger with other store locations as well.
A customer would be even more unlikely to sue since her damages would be slight and very difficult to prove. On the other hand, Serfecz has lost his anchor tenant and been precluded from getting another. The consequent decline in the value of his shopping center involves not only a substantial loss but one more easily calculable than losses to potential competitors or to consumers. Ser-fecz may be in theory only a supplier to a potential competitor but his evident loss is much more likely to be the basis of a lawsuit than the putative loss of one “directly” injured.
Judge Grady, whose summary judgment decision we review here, expressed doubt and frustration about the result to which he felt driven by the cases. He expressed the view that competitors of Jewel or its consumers would not in fact be in a position to challenge the alleged anticompetitive conduct here. Judge Grady expressed his concerns as follows:
Is there an identifiable class of potential plaintiffs who might be better suited than Serfecz by virtue of their more direct injuries to bring suit and whose self-interest would motivate them to do so? In the case most directly on point, Southaven, the Sixth Circuit rather summarily concluded that consumers or other market participants would be more appropriate plaintiffs to seek a remedy for restraint of trade or monopolization in the grocery market. While, in theory, we agree with the Sixth Circuit, we lack that court’s confidence that either of these two groups of potential plaintiffs would be sufficiently motivated to actually bring suit. We suggest that Ser-fecz might be correct that a competing grocery store not yet operating in the area, such as Dominicks, would be more likely to forgo a location than to incur the high start-up costs of litigation. Indeed, according to plaintiffs, the fact is that no competitor has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Jewel although there is evidence that Jewel has been restricting locations throughout Illinois for the last ten years. As regards a consumer suit, the degree of harm suffered by an individual consumer as a result of reduced competition in the grocery market in Elk Grove Village would probably not be sufficiently great to give him incentive to sue. Thus, we fear that there is a high risk that a significant antitrust violation will go unremedied if we do not grant plaintiffs standing to sue in this case. Mem.Op. at pp. 602-03.
Admittedly, the prospect of there being no enforcement of the antitrust laws here if the present suit fails is not dispositive, but it should weigh significantly in the scales. “An antitrust standing determination is ultimately a product of the particularities of each case.” Banner v. Board of Trade, 62 F.3d 918, 927 (7th Cir.1995). “McCready and Associated General Contractors exemplify that innumerable elements, including proximity and directness, constitute proper areas of inquiry” in determining antitrust standing. Southaven Land Co., Inc. v. Malone & Hyde, Inc., 715 F.2d 1079, 1085 (6th Cir.1983). This case is a far cry from Associated General Contractors, Inc. v. California State Council of Carpenters, 459 U.S. 519, 103 S.Ct. 897, 74 L.Ed.2d 723 (1983), where the injury to the plaintiff union was far more speculative than any injury to landowners (customers) and other contractors (competitors) to whom *605coercion was applied in that case. Certainly these landowners and other contractors could readily have sued had they in fact been injured. That is not the ease here.
I believe that this case is distinguishable from much of the precedent because Jewel as an anchor tenant in a shopping center occupies a dual role. It is no doubt a competitor in the retail grocery market. But it (or its replacement if one is permitted) is also an essential ingredient of a successful shopping center. Jewel’s refusal to permit competition is therefore in and of itself a fatal blow to the viability of the center. The issue is whether Serfeez has “antitrust” standing and I am persuaded that he does in these limited circumstances — even though the injury to him is indirect. Cf. Greater Rockford Energy & Technology Corp. v. Shell Oil Co., 998 F.2d 391 (7th Cir.1993), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 1054, 127 L.Ed.2d 375 (1994).
Southaven Land Co., cited by the majority, is factually on point but reaches a result opposite to the one I advocate here. However, that case conceded that, “a finding or concession that [the lessor] is not a direct participant in the relevant market is not dis-positive of the § 4 ‘standing’ issue.” 715 F.2d at 1086. The Sixth Circuit went on to conclude that the injury to the lessor of grocery store facilities was not “inextricably intertwined” with the injury to the retail grocery market so as to make the analysis in Blue Shield of Virginia v. McCready, 457 U.S. 465, 102 S.Ct. 2540, 73 L.Ed.2d 149 (1982), controlling. I think the analysis of the Sixth Circuit up to, but not including, its final step is correct. I disagree, however, on the question whether the injury to the retail grocery market here is inextricably intertwined with the injury to Serfeez and the Grove Mall. If, as is alleged, Jewel retained its lease on the empty store in the Grove Mall with intent to monopolize the retail grocery business in the area, it is difficult to see how damage to the Mall would not have been foreseeable and inevitable. Therefore, I believe that the one injury is inextricably intertwined with the other. Injury to the Mall is surely more calculable than injury to a potential competitor not yet present in the market. Cf. Hoopes v. Union Oil Co., 374 F.2d 480 (9th Cir.1967).
In the case before us, Judge Grady found: Without elaborating in any detail, we believe that plaintiffs in the present case have presented enough evidence for the trier of fact to find a causal connection between the absence of a grocery store anchor tenant and the slow demise of the Grove Mall. There is also evidence that Jewel acted deliberately to prevent a competitor from occupying the space in the Mall. Mem.Op. at 7.
It is also true that there is no problem of duplicative recovery here because Serfeez presumably could recover the loss in value of his shopping center due to his inability to redevelop it, as well as lost rental income. A potential competitor, on the other hand, could recover the unrelated amount of lost profits, and a consumer could recover damages due to higher prices. On balance, therefore, I believe that Serfeez has antitrust standing and should be allowed to proceed. I therefore respectfully dissent.