Huelsman v. Civic Center Corp.

690 F. Supp. 825, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8579, 1988 WL 80750
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Missouri
DecidedJune 28, 1988
DocketNo. 87-1403C(3)
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 690 F. Supp. 825 (Huelsman v. Civic Center Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Huelsman v. Civic Center Corp., 690 F. Supp. 825, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8579, 1988 WL 80750 (E.D. Mo. 1988).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM

HUNGATE, District Judge.

This matter is before the Court on defendants’ separate motions to dismiss plaintiffs’ first amended complaint. Plaintiffs oppose the motions. The Court heard oral argument on the motions and gave the parties time in which to submit additional written materials.

Plaintiffs are residents of Missouri and are self-employed, licensed vendors who, “for a substantial period of time” prior to the spring of 1984, sold their merchandise in the area immediately adjacent to and outside Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, at scheduled events at the stadium. Defendant Civic Center Corporation (“Civic Center”) is a corporation engaged in the management and operation of the stadium. Defendant Sportservice Corporation (“Sportservice”) has an agreement with Civic Center by which Sportservice has the right to sell goods, merchandise, and food inside the stadium. Pursuant to this Court’s federal question jurisdiction, plaintiffs seek “an adjudication that defendants have violated” the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1 and 1px solid var(--green-border)">2, an award of threefold damages from defendants jointly and severally for such violations, and an award of fees and costs (Counts I and II). Pursuant to this Court’s pendent jurisdiction, plaintiffs seek actual and punitive damages for defendants’ allegedly tortious interference with plaintiffs’ business relationships and expectancies. In particular, plaintiffs allege that from 1983 to about April 1984, defendants engaged in a conspiracy and other conduct to restrain and monopolize the trade, and to fix the prices, of vendors in the area immediately outside of and adjacent to the stadium. Plaintiffs allege this conduct has “an appreciable and substantial effect on interstate commerce” and encompasses efforts relating to passage of and compliance with City of St. Louis Ordinance 59090. In general, that ordinance (a) proscribes vending upon any public streets within a specified geographic area; (b) provides two exceptions to the vending prohibition with one of those exceptions allowing vending in a specified area immediately outside the stadium so long as the interested vendors enter into a street vending agreement with defendant Civic Center; and (c) provides that violation of the ordinance constitutes a misdemeanor punishable by imposition of a fine. Plaintiffs and defendant Civic Center have not entered into a street vending agreement, and plaintiffs’ allegations indicate they have not sold merchandise at the stadium since the ordinance was passed.

Defendant Civic Center moves to dismiss pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) due to (1) plaintiffs’ failure sufficiently to plead either the requisite nexus between defendants’ conduct and interstate commerce or the antitrust injury to competition required for Sherman Act claims; (2) movants’ immunity from antitrust and tort liability under the Noerr-Pennington doctrine for the pre-ordinance conduct at issue here; and (3) movants’ exemption from antitrust liability under the state action doctrine and the Local Government Antitrust Act of 1984, 15 U.S.C. §§ 34-36, for the post-ordinance conduct at issue here. Defendant Sportservice moves to dismiss pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) or for summary judgment under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56 on the same grounds and because of plaintiffs’ failure to allege facts establishing their standing to sue.

Finding plaintiffs have not alleged sufficiently the nexus between defendants’ conduct and interstate commerce, the Court [827]*827will grant the motions on that ground.1 The Court will not address the other grounds set forth in the motions. Having dismissed the only federal claims, the Court will dismiss without prejudice the remaining pendent claim.

The Sherman Act prohibits every contract, combination, or conspiracy “in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states,” 15 U.S.C. § 1, and prohibits monopolizing “any part of the trade or commerce among the several states,” 15 U.S.C. § 2. To fall within the Sherman Act, the alleged activity must occur in interstate commerce or substantially affect interstate commerce. McLain v. Real Estate Bd. of New Orleans, 444 U.S. 232, 241-42, 100 S.Ct. 502, 508-09, 62 L.Ed.2d 441 (1980); Burke v. Ford, 389 U.S. 320, 321, 88 S.Ct. 443, 444, 19 L.Ed.2d 554 (1967) (per curiam). No party contends the conduct at issue here is itself “in” interstate commerce. Thus, the Court must determine whether the allegations of plaintiffs’ first amended complaint show sufficiently that defendants’ conduct, while local in nature, “substantially affects” interstate commerce for purposes of a Sherman Act claim. Hospital Bldg. Co., supra, 425 U.S. at 743, 96 S.Ct. at 1852.

To satisfy this requirement, plaintiffs may make allegations about conduct “not ‘purposely directed’ toward interstate commerce,” id. at 744-45, 96 S.Ct. at 1852-53; about conduct having an “impact on interstate commerce [that] falls short of causing enterprises to fold or affecting market price,” id. at 745-46, 96 S.Ct. at 1852-53; and about the “substantial effect on interstate commerce generated” by defendants’ business activity, McLain, supra, 444 U.S. at 242-43, 100 S.Ct. at 509-10. While, for jurisdictional purposes, plaintiffs need not quantify the adverse impact of defendants’ conduct, id. at 243, 100 S.Ct. at 510, plaintiffs must demonstrate that the activity of defendants allegedly infected by the conspiracy “ ‘as a matter of practical economics’ [has] a not insubstantial effect on the interstate commerce involved.” Id. at 246, 100 S.Ct. at 511.

To establish jurisdiction [over a Sherman Act claim] a plaintiff must allege the critical relationship in the pleadings and if these allegations are controverted must proceed to demonstrate by submission of evidence beyond the pleadings either that the defendants’ activity is itself in interstate commerce or, if it is local in nature, that it has an effect on some other appreciable activity demonstrably in interstate commerce.

Id. at 242, 100 S.Ct. at 509. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has interpreted this to require a determination of jurisdiction by “using a case-by-case analysis of the relevant economic facts.” Heille v. City of St. Paul, Mn., 671 F.2d 1134, 1136 (8th Cir.1982). Moreover, the Eighth Circuit requires this analysis to focus on defendants’ challenged conduct rather than on defendants’ general activities. Hayden v.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
690 F. Supp. 825, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8579, 1988 WL 80750, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/huelsman-v-civic-center-corp-moed-1988.