Bigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.
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''Bigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.'', 327 U.S. 251 (1946), was a decision by the
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
allowing an action to recover
compensatory damages At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...
under the antitrust statutes. The jury had returned a verdict for $120,000 in petitioner's favor, covering a five-year period where plaintiff suffered due to respondents' antitrust conspiracy. The trial court, sitting in the
Northern District of Illinois The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (in case citations, N.D. Ill.) is the federal trial-level court with jurisdiction over the northern counties of Illinois. Appeals from the Northern District of Illinois ar ...
, gave judgment for treble damages, as prescribed by ยง 4 of the
Clayton Act The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 (, codified at , ), is a part of United States antitrust law with the goal of adding further substance to the U.S. antitrust law regime; the Clayton Act seeks to prevent anticompetitive practices in their incipie ...
. The
7th Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (in case citations, 7th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the courts in the following districts: * Central District of Illinois * Northern District of Illi ...
reversed on the sole ground that the evidence of damage was not sufficient for submission to the jury, and directed the entry of judgment for respondents ''non obstante veredicto'' (notwithstanding the verdict). The Supreme Court granted
certiorari In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...
to determine whether the evidence of damage was sufficient to support the verdict. Respondents argued that any measure of damages would be too speculative and uncertain to afford an accurate measure of the amount of the damage. The Supreme Court disagreed, not wanting to let the respondent defeat a remedy because its antitrust violation was so effective and complete. The Court held that the jury could return a verdict for the plaintiffs, even though damages could not be measured with the exactness which would otherwise have been possible, so long as the jury made a "just and reasonable estimate of the damage based on relevant data". The judgment of the district court was affirmed and the judgment of the court of appeals was reversed.


Facts

Petitioners, owners of the Jackson Park motion picture theatre in Chicago, alleged that respondents, some of whom, like
RKO Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orphe ...
, were distributors of films, and some of whom owned or controlled theatres in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
, entered into a
conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agree ...
which continued from some time before November 1936 to the date the suit was brought, July 28, 1942. During the conspiracy, films were distributed among cinemas in Chicago in such a manner that theatres owned by some of the conspirators were able to show movies before independent theater operators. Independent exhibitors were not able to show new movies until the conspirators had finished with a " first run". The first question was whether there was an unlawful conspiracy, and the second question was how to measure the damages for any loss, given the difficulty of knowing how many people might have attended different films.


Judgment

The Supreme Court found that it was "indisputable that the jury could have found that ... a first run theater possessed competitive advantages over later run theaters" and that this discriminatory release was "damaging to petitioners". The problem, however, was the uncertainty in determining to what amount those damages should total. The petitioners submitted two methodologies for calculating damages. The first was the yardstick method, which compared the earnings from petitioner's theater, Jackson Park, during the conspiracy to the earnings of its competitor, the Maryland Theater. The two theaters were comparable in size, although the Jackson Park theater was "superior in location, equipment, and attractiveness to patrons."''Id''. at 258 The Maryland Theater, however, was owned by
Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
, and benefited from the conspiracy. The evidence showed that during the five-year period, Maryland's profit exceeded petitioner's like profit by $115,982.34. The second measure was the before & after method. Here, the Court looked to the years 1933-1937, where the petitioner had successfully showed at least some first run movies, to the five-year period where the conspiracy was established to have happened, and petitioner was completely shut out of first run movies despite its best efforts. This comparison showed a falling off of petitioners' profits during the five-year period aggregating $125,659.00. The 7th Circuit concluded that the jury had adopted the before & after method, but that this proof did not furnish a proper measure of damage for the reason that it could not be proved what petitioner's earnings would have been in the absence of the illegal distribution of films. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that a damage award does not need to be mathematically precise, but it must be a just and reasonable estimate based on the evidence presented, and not based on speculation. Petitioners are able to submit yardstick or before & after estimates, but they must be careful to use comparable data.


See also

*
United States antitrust law In the United States, antitrust law is a collection of mostly federal laws that regulate the conduct and organization of businesses to promote competition and prevent unjustified monopolies. The three main U.S. antitrust statutes are the Sherman ...
* ''
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. ''United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.'', 334 U.S. 131 (1948) (also known as the Hollywood Antitrust Case of 1948, the Paramount Case, or the Paramount Decision), was a landmark United States Supreme Court antitrust case that decided the f ...
'', 334 U.S. 131 (1948), deciding the fate of movie studios owning their own theatres and holding exclusivity rights on which theatres would show their films. *
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 327 This is a list of all the United States Supreme Court cases from volume 327 of the ''United States Reports The ''United States Reports'' () are the official record ( law reports) of the Supreme Court of the United States. They include rulings, ...


References


External links

{{caselaw source , case = Bigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., {{ussc, 327, 251, 1946, el=no , findlaw = https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/327/251.html , justia = https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/327/251/ , loc =http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep327/usrep327251/usrep327251.pdf Judicial remedies United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Stone Court 1946 in United States case law United States antitrust case law RKO General 1946 in American cinema History of film Media case law