On October 14, 2014, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied a motion for reconsideration brought by members and affiliates of the former Eastern Mushroom Marketing Cooperative (EMMC). In re Mushroom Direct Purchaser Antitrust Litig., No. 06-0620 (E.D. Pa. Oct. 14, 2014). In 2009, the court denied defendants’ motion for partial summary judgment, which argued that defendants were immune from antitrust liability as members of an agricultural cooperative under the Capper-Volstead Act, 7 U.S.C. § 291. The court gave two reasons for denying the motion: (1) the EMMC allegedly conspired with entities that were not engaged in agricultural production and (2) non-grower M. Cutone’s membership in the cooperative destroyed Capper-Volstead immunity. Defendants moved for reconsideration in light of intervening authority from the Supreme Court in American Needle Inc. v. Nat’l Football League, 560 U.S. 783 (2010), and the Third Circuit in Deutscher Tennis Bund v. APT Tour, Inc., 610 F.3d 820 (3d Cir. 2010).
Defendants argued that, under American Needle, an unlawful conspiracy could not exist between an EMMC grower member and its affiliated distributor. The court analyzed American Needle and emphasized that “substance, not form, should determine whether a[n] . . . entity is capable of conspiring under § 1 [of the Sherman Act].” Mushroom, No. 06-0620 at 6 (quoting American Needle, 560 U.S. at 195). The court held that its prior conclusion that member Kaolin/South Mill and its distribution centers were not a single entity was undisturbed by American Needle. That the entities were “separate decision makers pursuing separate economic interests” was strongly evidenced, in the court’s eyes, by litigation that had occurred between the entities. Mushroom, No. 06-0620 at 9.
Defendants also argued that participation in the cooperative by M. Cutone, a non-grower affiliate of grower-member M&V Enterprises, was protected under Capper-Volstead under the same rationale behind the intra-enterprise conspiracy doctrine discussed in American Needle. The court held that this argument “misconstrue[d] the nature of the single entity defense. . . . Merely because two parties are considered to be a single entity for the purpose of a conspiracy claim under American Needle does not require that they be similarly considered in order to determine whether the cooperative’s membership included non-growers.” Mushroom, No. 06-0620 at 12. Therefore, M. Cutone’s “power to participate in the control and policy making of the association through voting . . . destroyed the availability of Capper-Volstead immunity for the cooperative.” Id. at 11-12 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The court certified both issues for interlocutory review under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), as well as the question of whether a cooperative member’s good faith reliance on the advice of counsel can shield it from antitrust liability. It remains to be seen whether the Third Circuit will take up the appeal.
