Konczakowski v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.

20 F.R.D. 588, 1957 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4363, 1957 Trade Cas. (CCH) 68,778
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedJune 28, 1957
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 20 F.R.D. 588 (Konczakowski v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Konczakowski v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 20 F.R.D. 588, 1957 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4363, 1957 Trade Cas. (CCH) 68,778 (S.D.N.Y. 1957).

Opinion

LEVET, District Judge.

Each of the defendants herein has moved for an order in accordance with Rule 33 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A. striking all or [591]*591part of the interrogatories propounded by plaintiffs to the respective defendants.

This is an action instituted pursuant to the Sherman, Clayton and Robinson-Patman Acts, 15 U.S.C.A. §§ 1-27, for treble damages. The plaintiffs are the owners and operators of the Marlowe Theatre in Buffalo, New York, and the defendants are motion picture distributors or exhibitors, or both. The complaint alleges that the defendants have conspired with “affiliated exhibitors, large unaffiliated circuits, and locally favored exhibitors, to monopolize motion picture exhibition in the various localities in the United States including Buffalo * *

Although during his examination before trial the plaintiff, Mieczyslaw M. Konczakowski, acknowledged that his grievance concerned the relative playing positions between his Marlowe Theatre and those of his competitor, the Niagara Theatre, the complaint states in broad terms that the plaintiffs are the victims of the local impact of a national conspiracy. The substance of the plaintiffs’ allegations appears to be found in subdivisions (c) and (d) of paragraph 18, and in paragraph 19 of the complaint, which read as follows:

“(c) Pursuant to and in furtherance of such unlawful monopoly and conspiracy, the defendant distributors, acting illegally in concert and in combination with and for the benefit of the defendant affiliated exhibitors, unlawfully discriminated and conspired against plaintiffs by illegally usurping from plaintiffs’ Marlowe Theatre in or about the year 1939 its long-established run of motion pictures and by granting said run to said Niagara Theatre and by unlawfully withholding from said Marlowe Theatre the right to exhibit motion pictures until long after they had been exhibited in downtown Buffalo first run and move-over theatres and in said Niagara Theatre.
“(d) Pursuant to and in furtherance of such unlawful monopoly and conspiracy, the defendant distributors and exhibitor defendants unlawfully discriminated and conspired against plaintiffs by engaging in monopolistic practices favorable to the exhibitor defendants and detrimental and injurious to plaintiffs relating to or concerning film rentals; maintenance of minimum admission prices; advertising allowances; deduction in film rentals on playing of double features; deduction in film rentals for extra expense incurred for patronage stimulants; granting of move-overs including the creation of a move-over run granted to the exhibitor defendants’ Teck Theatre in downtown Buffalo; permitting extended runs and day and date runs; selection and rejection of films theretofore contracted for; tie-in sales (block booking); road show and so-called pre-release showings and privileges; requirements respecting playing of foreign produced pictures; playing of pictures on preferred play dates; overage and under ages (i. e. permitting commitments for one theatre to be worked off in other theatres of the defendant exhibitors or their affiliates); playing of pictures out of order of release; bidding for pictures; checking box office receipts and auditing books; determining ‘split figures’ (allowance for theatre operation expense on percentage rental pictures); guaranteed minimum film rentals; joint advertising campaigns; rebates, discounts or allowances as to film rentals and advertising and other elements of exhibition expense.
“19. The distributor defendants and the exhibitor defendants combined, conspired and agreed to exclude arbitrarily the Marlowe Theatre from the motion picture benefits to which it was clearly entitled by reason of its history, [592]*592appointments, size, location, management and other relevant factors, and to award unjust and unlawful benefits to said Niagara Theatre and the Buffalo first run downtown and moveover and neighborhood first run theatres operated, managed or controlled by the exhibitor defendants * *

That the motion picture industry may establish successive runs or exhibitions of a feature in a given area, or prescribe the clearance or period of time which must elapse between runs of the same feature within a particular area or in specified theatres, is not now open to question. It has been judicially declared that “[T]he nature of the product with which motion picture distributors and exhibitors deal is such as to require the regulation of the manner of exhibition. * * * So preference must be given to certain theatres. And to make such preference effective, the exhibition of pictures at other theatres must be limited to a lapsed period after exhibition of the picture at first-run theatres.” Fanchon & Marco v. Paramount Pictures, D.C.S.D.Cal.1951, 100 F.Supp. 84, 89, affirmed 9 Cir., 1954, 215 F.2d 167, certiorari denied 348 U.S. 912, 75 S.Ct. 293, 99 L.Ed. 715. It is the manner in which the defendants regulated and awarded successive runs and clearances of films to the alleged detriment of plaintiffs’ Marlowe Theatre in Buffalo upon which this action is bottomed. Mr. Konczakowski has testified that what the plaintiffs want for their Marlowe Theatre is a run after the Victoria Theatre and that when the Niagara Theatre came into existence on or about July 10, 1940, it was awarded a run following the Victoria run with clearance over the Marlowe. Mr. Konczakowski also said that since the Marlowe was an established theatre when the Niagara Theatre came into existence, it was his belief that “the established theatre should have a clearance over a new theatre.”

Before considering the specific interrogatories addressed to each defendant to which objections have been raised, it is appropriate to note certain salient rules which are applicable to some of the interrogatories propounded herein.

Where a complaint in an antitrust action by a theatre owner against motion picture producers and distributors alleges that certain conduct in a designated area was part of a national conspiracy, the plaintiff may obtain answers to interrogatories concerning the size of the defendants, the amount of their business and the degree of integration between them, and these interrogatories need not be restricted to purely local matters. Burroughs v. Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc., D.C.Mass.1952, 12 F.R.D. 491. However, where the interrogatories seek information concerning the national or local activities of the producers and distributors which do not affect the plaintiff theatre owner, such interrogatories are irrelevant and improper. Thus, it was held in T. C. Theatre Corp v. Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc., D.C.S.D.N.Y.1954, 16 F.R.D. 173 that in an anti-trust suit involving a conspiracy to deprive plaintiff’s theatre of second run films, inquiries into the affairs and transactions of defendants’ first run theatres in the community were not relevant and, moreover, where the inquiries were on a nationwide scale, they were clearly irrelevant. The plaintiffs have not shown how information concerning first run theatres in Buffalo is relevant. Indeed, Mr.

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Bluebook (online)
20 F.R.D. 588, 1957 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4363, 1957 Trade Cas. (CCH) 68,778, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/konczakowski-v-paramount-pictures-inc-nysd-1957.