American Sales Co. v. AstraZeneca LP

845 F.3d 470, 96 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 838, 2017 WL 88994, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 418
CourtCourt of Appeals for the First Circuit
DecidedJanuary 10, 2017
DocketNos. 15-2005, 15-2006, 15-2007
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 845 F.3d 470 (American Sales Co. v. AstraZeneca LP) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the First Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
American Sales Co. v. AstraZeneca LP, 845 F.3d 470, 96 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 838, 2017 WL 88994, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 418 (1st Cir. 2017).

Opinion

ORDER OF COURT

The various groups of plaintiffs have collectively filed three petitions for panel rehearing and two for rehearing en banc, raising various objections to the panel opinion. This order deals primarily with the petitions for panel rehearing. None of them has merit.

End-Payor Class’s Petition

The End-Payor Class, seeking only panel rehearing, argues that we must remand the case with regard to the permanent injunction issue because the panel rejected the sole ground on which the district court had denied the plaintiffs’ post-trial motion for permanent injunctive re[474]*474lief. This argument is meritless. The End-Payor Class petitioners have waived the issue of the denial of injunctive relief by failing to address it in their briefs on appeal. They admit that they did not brief the issue of whether the district court erred in denying their motion for a permanent injunction. They also do not offer any rationale for that failure. They do argue that their omission should be excused because the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) submitted an amicus brief, which argued that the district court had erroneously conflated the distinct concepts of antitrust violation and antitrust injury, and the panel then discussed that issue in the opinion.

From the fact that the panel agreed with the FTC, the End-Payor Class argues in its petition that the class did not waive the issue of injunctive relief by not raising that issue on appeal. But the FTC did not argue that the plaintiffs were entitled to any injunctive relief. In fact, the FTC explicitly stated that it was filing its brief “in support of no party.”

In addition, the cases that the petition cites do not explain why we should exercise our discretion to excuse waiver under these circumstances. We recognize that the Ninth Circuit once found that it would be “manifestly unjust” to deem waived a claim of inherently prejudicial procedural error, where the result would have been not to reverse a criminal defendant’s conviction while reversing his co-defendant’s conviction.1 See United States v. Olano, 934 F.2d 1425, 1439 (9th Cir. 1991), rev’d, 507 U.S. 725, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993). We also recognize that the Second Circuit once excused a litigant’s failure to invoke an issue “explicitly by name.” Rivkin v. Century 21 Teran Realty LLC, 494 F.3d 99, 104 n.11 (2d Cir. 2007). Those cases have no bearing on whether we should overlook the End-Payor Class’s failure to brief the injunctive-relief issue in this particular instance. Nor is this case like New England Surfaces v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 546 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2008), clarified on denial of reh’g, 546 F.3d 11 (1st Cir. 2008), in which we chose not to address in the first instance an issue that the district court had not fully explored and that neither party had developed in them arguments on appeal. Id. at 10-11. In short, these cases confirm the inherent discretion that appellate panels have under Rule 2 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure to suspend the rules for “good cause” or if a failure to review an issue would result in “manifest injustice.” Fed. R. App. P. 2 & advisory committee’s note to 1967 adoption. The cases do not persuade us that we should exercise that discretion under the circumstances of this petition.

Petitioners certainly have not shown good cause for the panel to suspend the rules. Nor have they come close to showing a need for injunctive relief, despite their utter failure to brief the question, in order to prevent a manifest injustice. There is no obvious threatened loss or damage ensuing from the defendants’ actions, and the plaintiffs have not presented a cogent argument for establishing such threatened harm. As we explained in In re New Motor Vehicles Canadian Export Antitrust Litigation, 522 F.3d 6 (1st Cir. 2008), “a plaintiff seeking relief under section 16 [of the Clayton Act] need not show actual antitrust damages but only a ‘threatened loss or damage.’” Id. at 12 (quoting 15 U.S.C. § 26). While the requirements for standing to pursue injunc[475]*475tive relief are thus “less stringent” than those for standing to pursue damages, id. at 13, plaintiffs seeking injunctive relief must still demonstrate that they “face a threat of injury that is both “‘real and immediate,” not “conjectural” or “hypothetical,”’” id. at 14 (quoting O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 494, 94 S.Ct. 669, 38 L.Ed.2d 674 (1974)). Critically, “[p]ast exposure to illegal conduct does not in itself show a present ease or controversy regarding injunctive relief ... if unaccompanied by any continuing, present adverse effects.” Id. (second alteration in original) (quoting O’Shea, 414 U.S. at 495-96, 94 S.Ct. 669).

Under the rules governing petitions for panel rehearing, the petitioners must point to something that they “believe[ ] the court has overlooked or misapprehended.” Fed. R. App. P. 40(a)(2). In light of the plaintiffs’ failure to brief the issue of the denial of their request for a permanent injunction, the panel neither overlooked nor misapprehended that issue. See Easley v. Reuss, 532 F.3d 592, 593-94 (7th Cir. 2008) (per curiam) (“It goes without saying that the panel cannot have ‘overlooked or misapprehended’ an issue that was not presented to it. Panel rehearing is not a vehicle for presenting new arguments, and, absent extraordinary circumstances, we shall not entertain arguments raised for the first time in a petition for rehearing.”); 16AA Wright & Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure § 3986.1 (4th ed. 2008) (“Issues that were not presented in the initial briefs and argument will seldom be considered when presented for the first time by petition for rehearing.”).

Direct-Purchaser Class’s and Individual Retailers’ Petitions

The Direct-Purchaser Class (joined by the End-Payor Class) and the Individual Retailers petition for both panel and en banc rehearing. We deny panel rehearing.

These petitions mischaracterize the panel opinion as having required the plaintiffs to have conclusively proved patent invalidity before being able to pursue an at-risk launch theory at trial. The panel decision did no such thing. The opinion observed merely that, under the circumstances of this case, “the district court ...

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845 F.3d 470, 96 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 838, 2017 WL 88994, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 418, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/american-sales-co-v-astrazeneca-lp-ca1-2017.