Broadway Delivery Corp. v. United Parcel Service of America, Inc.

Summary

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed judgment for United Parcel Service in an antitrust action brought under the Clayton Act. The court held that the plaintiffs abandoned their Sherman Act § 1 claim by failing to pursue it at trial and that the jury instruction treating a market share below 50% as conclusively insufficient to establish monopoly power was erroneous. The error was harmless because the plaintiffs presented insufficient evidence to establish that UPS possessed monopoly power.

Holdings

1. Plaintiffs abandoned their section 1 claim by failing to pursue it at trial, request a jury instruction, or object to the absence of such an instruction after the district court expressly permitted them to attempt to prove the claim.
2. A jury may not be instructed that a defendant necessarily lacks monopoly power whenever its market share is below a specified percentage, including 50 percent. Market share is evidence of monopoly power, but its significance depends on the entire market structure and other evidence bearing on the power to control prices or exclude competition.
3. The erroneous instruction was harmless because plaintiffs failed to present sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that UPSNY possessed monopoly power.
4. Although market-share evidence is not invariably required, a plaintiff lacking that traditional proof must present unambiguous evidence that the defendant has the power to control prices or exclude competition; isolated anticompetitive acts ordinarily do not suffice.

Questions Presented

1. Whether plaintiffs abandoned their section 1 Sherman Act claim by failing to pursue it in the district court after receiving an opportunity to litigate it before the jury.
2. Whether the district court erred by instructing the jury that a market share below 50 percent could not establish monopoly power under section 2 of the Sherman Act.
3. Whether the instructional error required reversal of the judgment.
4. Whether plaintiffs presented sufficient evidence of monopoly power to make out a prima facie section 2 monopolization claim.
5. Whether the jury properly rejected plaintiffs' attempted-monopolization claim.

Disposition

affirmed