United States Tenth Circuit

Following summary judgment for defendants in an action brought by the founder of an aluminum distributor against older, more established ones, alleging antitrust claims and unlawful interference with business relationships, the court holds: 1) exclusion of plaintiff's economic expert was not error; 2) district court's analysis of whether certain statements were hearsay was flawed; 3) there was some direct evidence of an agreement among established distributors and the conspiracy posited by plaintiff was economically plausible; 4) plaintiff may be able to make out a claim of violation of a state antitrust act based on a collective action theory, but summary judgment as to any unilateral action violating the state act was not erroneous; and 5) a claim of tortious interference was rightly rejected as to one defendant, but may be proper as to another.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/08/2006
• Published 08/08/2006

Judges

• EBEL, Circuit Judge., Before KELLY, SEYMOUR, and EBEL, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Tenth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Clyde A. Muchmore, Crowe & Dunlevy, Oklahoma City, OK, (D. Kent Meyers and Mark S. Grossman, Crowe & Dunlevy, Oklahoma City, OK, and Michael Burrage, Burrage Law Firm, Durant, OK, with him on the briefs), for Plaintiff-Appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• Jeffrey W. Sarles, Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP, Chicago, IL (David A. Ettinger, Honigman Miller Schwartz & Cohn, LLP, Detroit, MI, M. Richard Mullins, McAfee & Taft, A Professional Corporation, Oklahoma City, OK, Mark McLaughlin and Susan Nystrom Ellis, Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP, Chicago, IL, Drew Neville, B.J. Rothbaum, Charles E. Geister III, Hartzog, Conger, Carson & Neville, Oklahoma City, OK, William J. O'Shaughnessy, McCarter English, Newark, NJ, Murray E. Abowitz, Abowitz, Timberlake & Dahnke, Oklahoma City, OK, Timothy R. Beyer, Brownstein Hyatt & Farber P.C., Denver, CO, Michael A. Rubenstein, McKinney & Stringer, PC, Oklahoma City, OK, David L. Hashmall, Felhaber, Larson, Fenlon & Vogt, P.A., Minneapolis, MN, Glen D. Huff and Steven J. Johnson, Foliart Huff Ottaway & Bottom, P.C., Oklahoma City, OK, Allan B. Goldman and Charles M. Stern, Katten Muchin Zavis Rosenman, Los Angeles, CA, Alfred P. Murrah, Jr. and Fred A. Leibrock, Phillips McFall McCaffrey McVay & Murrah, P.C., Oklahoma City, OK, with him on the briefs), for Defendants-Appellees.