Justia Commercial Law Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
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Auraria Student Housing at the Regency, LLC (Regency) sued Campus Village after the University of Colorado-Denver (UCD) instituted a residency requirement which forced a significant portion of its freshmen and international students to live at Campus Village. Campus Village was also an apartment complex located outside the boundaries of the UCD Campus. But the University of Colorado Real Estate Foundation (CUREF) was the sole member of Campus Village, and CUREF operated Campus Village for the benefit of the University of Colorado system. Although Regency alleged that UCD participated in the conspiracy, it named only Campus Village as a defendant in this litigation. On appeal of a jury verdict finding that Campus Village violated section two of the Sherman Antitrust Act based on its conspiracy with UCD to monopolize commerce, Campus Village argued principally that the district court erred by not requiring Regency to define the "relevant market" Campus Village allegedly conspired to monopolize. Specifically, it claimed recent Supreme Court and Tenth Circuit authority mandated that plaintiffs identify both the relevant geographic and product markets to recover under section 2, including for conspiracy-to-monopolize claims. The Tenth Circuit agreed, finding that Regency failed to identify the relevant marked in this case. But because Regency reasonably relied on the Tenth Circuit's contrary holding in "Salco Corp. v. Gen. Motors Corp.," (517 F.2d 567 (1975)), the Court instructed the district court to provide Regency an opportunity to define the relevant market on remand. Accordingly, the Tenth Circuit vacated the jury verdict and remanded this case for further proceedings. View "Auraria Student Housing v. Campus Village Apartments" on Justia Law