708 Fed.Appx. 29 (2nd Cir. 2017), 16-3484, Cinema Village Cinemart, Inc. v. Regal Entertainment Group

• Citation: 708 Fed.Appx. 29
• Party Name: CINEMA VILLAGE CINEMART, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. REGAL ENTERTAINMENT GROUP, Does, 2 Through 50, Defendants-Appellees.
• Attorney: For Plaintiff-Appellant: Maxwell M. Blecher (Howard K. Alperin, on the brief), Blecher Collins & Pepperman, P.C., Los Angeles, CA. For Defendants-Appellees: Leon B. Greenfield (David Sapir Lesser, Perry A. Lange, David M. Lehn, and Adam R. Prescott, on the brief), Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and...
• Judge Panel: PRESENT: ROBERT A. KATZMANN, Chief Judge, ROBERT D. SACK, PETER W. HALL, Circuit Judges.
• Case Date: September 21, 2017
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals, U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

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708 Fed.Appx. 29 (2nd Cir. 2017)

CINEMA VILLAGE CINEMART, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

REGAL ENTERTAINMENT GROUP, Does, 2 Through 50, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 16-3484

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit

September 21, 2017

Editorial Note:

This case was not selected for publication in the Federal Reporter and Not to be Cited as Precedent. (See Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure Rule 32.1)

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT'S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING TO A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

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Consolidated appeals from final judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Sullivan, J. ).

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

For Plaintiff-Appellant: Maxwell M. Blecher (Howard K. Alperin, on the brief), Blecher Collins & Pepperman, P.C., Los Angeles, CA.

For Defendants-Appellees: Leon B. Greenfield (David Sapir Lesser, Perry A. Lange, David M. Lehn, and Adam R. Prescott, on the brief), Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, Washington, D.C., and New York, NY.

PRESENT: ROBERT A. KATZMANN, Chief Judge, ROBERT D. SACK, PETER W. HALL, Circuit Judges.

SUMMARY ORDER

Plaintiff-appellant appeals from a judgment dismissing its complaint with prejudice entered on September 30, 2016, by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Sullivan, J. ). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural history, and issues on appeal.

Plaintiff-appellant Cinema Village Cinemart, Inc., ("Cinemart" ) operates a five-screen movie theater complex in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens, New York, while defendant-appellee Regal Entertainment Group ("Regal" ), as of the time of the filing of the amended complaint, operates approximately 575 theaters with 7,600 screens across the country, including the Midway Stadium 9 Theater ("Midway" ) in Forest Hills. Cinemart filed suit against Regal alleging that Regal had engaged in anti-competitive conduct by entering into a series of exclusive-dealing contracts or arrangements with six major film distributors— Warner Bros., Fox, Lionsgate, Paramount, Universal, and Disney— that collectively covered the overwhelming majority of first-run films in the Forest Hills area. Cinemart contends that Regal has used its significant market power as the largest theater circuit in the United States, and as the only major theater operator in many parts of the country, to coerce from the film distributors the exclusive first-run agreements at its Midway theater, which has effectively shut Cinemart out of the market for first-run films. Cinemart claims that such coercion constitutes an anti-competitive combination in restraint of trade in violation of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1, New York State’s Donnelly Act, N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § § 340 et seq., and constitutes

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tortious or intentional interference with a prospective economic advantage in violation of New York State common law.

We review de novo a district court’s dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), "accepting as true all factual claims in the complaint and drawing all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff’s favor." Fink v. Time Warner Cable., 714 F.3d 739, 740-41 (2d Cir. 2013). To withstand a motion to dismiss, "a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ "Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662,...