Kaufman v. Warner

836 F.3d 137, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 16254, 2016 WL 4578639
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedSeptember 2, 2016
DocketDocket No. 11-2512-cv
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 836 F.3d 137 (Kaufman v. Warner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kaufman v. Warner, 836 F.3d 137, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 16254, 2016 WL 4578639 (2d Cir. 2016).

Opinions

Judge Droney dissents in a separate opinion.

WINTER and CHIN, Circuit Judges:

Various subscribers to cable television services from Time Warner entities (collectively “Time Warner”) commenced this action below, alleging a violation of the Sherman Act in the tying of certain premium cable television services to the leasing of “interactive” set-top cable boxes. The district court (Kevin Castel, Judge) dismissed two iterations of the complaint, including the Third Amended Complaint, the operative complaint for the purposes of this opinion. The plaintiffs appealed.

We affirm, holding that the Third Amended Complaint fails to adequately plead facts that, if proven, would establish that: (i) the set-top cable boxes and the premium programming they transmit are separate products for the purposes of antitrust law; and (ii) Time Warner possesses sufficient market power in the relevant markets to establish an illegal tie-in.

BACKGROUND

The original complaint, filed in August 2008 in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas, alleged, inter alia, a violation of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1, in Time Warner’s requiring purchasers who bought a package of television channels to lease from Time Warner cable boxes necessary to transmit that programming. Similar lawsuits were filed in other districts and, in December 2008, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred the eases to the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs filed their First Amended Complaint shortly thereafter. Holding that the plaintiffs failed to plead actual coercion in the alleged tying arrangement, the district court dismissed the First Amended Complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) with leave to replead. In re Time Warner Inc. Set-Top Cable Television Antitrust Litig., Nos. 08 MDL 1995, 2010 WL 882989 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 5, 2010). After a conference with the district court, the plaintiffs voluntarily withdrew the Second Amended Complaint and were granted leave to file a Third Amended Complaint (the “Complaint”). The district court dismissed the Complaint because it failed to plausibly allege market power and adverse competitive effects. In re Set-Top Cable Television Box Antitrust Litig., Nos. 08 MDL 1995, 2011 WL 1432036, at *13 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 8, 2011).

The Complaint identifies the relevant tying product as “Premium Cable Services,” defined as “digital cable services incorporating interactive functions.” (Joint App. 174). The interactive features include program guides, parental control devices, “start over” functionality (allowing viewers to start a program from the beginning), and on demand programming of movies, sports, and adult material. Premium Cable Services require a set-top box that functions bi-directionally, i.e., it is able to transmit signals from the cable provider to the consumer and vice versa.

The Complaint alleges that Time Warner, using its market power over Premium Cable Services in 53 United States markets, forces its subscribers to lease “set-top boxes” or “bi-directional cable boxes” from Time Warner, to be returned if or when the subscriptions end, as a condition of subscribing to the Premium Cable Services. Consumers are thus not able to end a subscription and use their own cable box to buy a subscription from a new provider or receive that programming in another area. Time Warner does not manufacture the set-top boxes it leases to subscribers; it purchases them from manufacturers such as Motorola, Scientific Atlanta, and Samsung.

[141]*141The district court dismissed the Complaint largely on the grounds that the Complaint failed to distinguish between markets in which Time Warner had competition for Premium Cable Services — 22 of the 53 markets — or to distinguish between Time Warner’s market power in basic cable services and its market power in premium services. In re Set-Top Cable Television Box Antitrust Litigation, 2011 WL 1432036, at *13-14. The court held, therefore, that the plaintiffs did not plausibly plead that Time Warner had the requisite market power. It granted the plaintiffs leave to replead for the fourth time. Id. at *14. They instead appealed.

DISCUSSION

We review a district court’s grant of a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) de novo, accepting all allegations in the Complaint as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-moving party. Taylor v. Vt. Dep’t of Educ., 313 F.3d 768, 776 (2d Cir. 2002). However, the allegations must still be “plausible,” a standard that “asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully,” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009), and “a district court must retain the power to insist upon some specificity in pleading,” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 558, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) (internal quotations omitted).

I. Tie-Ins

A tying arrangement is “an agreement by a party to sell a product but only on the condition that the' buyer also purchase[ ] a different (or tied) product.” Yentsch v. Texaco, Inc., 630 F.2d 46, 56 (2d Cir. 1980) (quoting N. Pac. Ry. Co. v. United States, 356 U.S. 1, 5, 78 S.Ct. 514, 2 L.Ed.2d 545 (1958)). The fear of tie-ins is that a monopolist in one product market will seek to expand its monopoly by conditioning the purchase of the monopolized product upon the purchase of a product in a separate market.

To state a valid tying claim under the Sherman Act, a plaintiff must allege facts plausibly showing that: (i) the sale of one product (the tying product) is conditioned on the purchase of a separate product (the tied product); (ii) the seller uses actual coercion to force buyers to purchase the tied product; (iii) the seller has sufficient economic power in the tying product market to coerce purchasers into buying the tied product; (iv) the tie-in "has anti-competitive effects in the tied market; and (v) a not insubstantial amount of interstate commerce is involved in the tied market. E & L Consulting, Ltd. v. Doman Indus. Ltd., 472 F.3d 23, 31 (2d Cir. 2006) (quoting De Jesus v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 87 F.3d 65, 70 (2d Cir. 1996)).

Three of these elements are of particular relevance to this appeal: the tying product and tied product must be separate, ie., each must be in a separate and distinct product market; the seller must use actual coercion; and the seller must have sufficient market power in the market for the tying product to coerce the purchase of the tied product. Although these elements overlap — the separate product” and “market power” requirements are usually essential to the coercion element — we .will discuss them separately.

The “separate product” element requires that the alleged tying product and tied product be separate, ie., they must exist in separate and distinct product markets.

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Bluebook (online)
836 F.3d 137, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 16254, 2016 WL 4578639, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kaufman-v-warner-ca2-2016.