Poster Exchange, Inc. v. National Screen Service Corp.

Decision Date08 August 1975
Docket NumberNo. 74-1512,74-1512
Citation517 F.2d 117
Parties1975-2 Trade Cases 60,426 The POSTER EXCHANGE, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NATIONAL SCREEN SERVICE CORPORATION et al., Defendants, Columbia Pictures Corp. et al., Defendants-Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Francis T. Anderson, New Orleans, La., Glenn B. Hester, Augusta, Ga., C. Ellis Henican, Jr., New Orleans, La., for plaintiff-appellant.

Warren O. Wheeler, Tench C. Coxe, Gambrell, Russell, Killorin, Wade & Forbe, Atlanta, Ga., Phillip A. Wittmann, New Orleans, La., for Columbia Pictures Corp. et al.

Walter Beck, New York City, Charles H. Kirbo, John Izard, Atlanta, Ga., for Nat. Screen Serv.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before TUTTLE, WISDOM and GOLDBERG, Circuit Judges.

GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge:

This case evolves from the same industry and raises, among others, the same issues decided today in Exhibitors Poster Exchange, Inc. v. National Screen Services Corp., 5 Cir., 517 F.2d 110, No. 74-1459 and Poster Exchange, Inc. v. National Screen Services Corp., 5 Cir., 517 F.2d 129, No. 74-2172, also decided today. Plaintiff here, The Poster Exchange Inc., (Poster), an Atlanta-based poster renter, initiated this treble damage suit 1 on February 26, 1969, in the Northern District of Georgia against National Screen Service Corp. (National Screen) and six motion picture producers (Producers) 2 charging their continuation of an unlawful antitrust conspiracy, attempted monopoly, and monopoly, in the motion picture accessory industry in derogation of Sherman Act §§ 1 3 and 2. 4 In December, 1973, the district court granted the Producers (but not National Screen) a summary judgment on grounds of collateral estoppel and limitations. 5 Poster appeals.

We affirm as to all Producers except Columbia on grounds of collateral estoppel; we reverse as to Columbia, and remand for further proceedings with respect to the claim against it.

I

The industry here is the same as that described in Exhibitors Poster Exchange, Inc. v. National Screen Services Corp., supra, but ever since 1943 plaintiff Poster has encountered rougher treatment from National Screen than has its counterpart in New Orleans. After settlement of the first motion picture accessory suit, in Philadelphia in 1943, National Screen granted Exhibitors in New Orleans a sublicense to distribute posters manufactured by National Screen; but, despite repeated requests, plaintiff Poster in Atlanta was afforded no such license. After entering the Atlanta Exchange Market, National Screen did supply Poster with accessories to some extent, until 1961, but these provisions were not sufficient to meet Poster's needs in supplying all of its own customers, and the prices to Poster were substantially higher than those to other independent poster renters. Finally, on May 16, 1961, Poster was cut off entirely from National Screen's posters.

In response, Poster sued National Screen in the Northern District of Georgia in 1961, charging National Screen with violations of § 2 of the Sherman Act and praying for treble damages and injunctive relief. The district court denied National Screen's motion for a summary judgment in its favor, and awarded a preliminary injunction. Poster Exchange, Inc. v. National Screen Service Corp., N.D.Ga.1961, 198 F.Supp. 557. On appeal we affirmed, 5 Cir. 1962, 305 F.2d 647, holding in particular that the outcome of the Philadelphia-based litigation of Lawlor v. National Screen Service Corp., 3 Cir. 1959, 270 F.2d 146, cert. denied, 1960, 362 U.S. 922, 80 S.Ct. 676, 4 L.Ed.2d 742, in Philadelphia was not conclusive in this case.

Poster subsequently filed an amended complaint adding all of the Producers presently charged, save Columbia, as parties defendant. As amended, the complaint recited that each of the Producers, including Columbia, had contracted with National Screen regarding the production and distribution of its accessories, and alleged that the arrangements "were entered into pursuant to and in furtherance of a conspiratorial plan or scheme deliberately concerned and launched by the parties thereto for the purpose of creating a national monopoly of distributing standard accessories." The Producers moved for summary judgment, which was granted by the district court in 1963. Poster Exchange, Inc. v. National Screen Service Corp., N.D.Ga.1963, 35 F.R.D. 558. In granting judgment, the district court found no genuine issue as to any material facts, and relying on the Lawlor case as stare decisis, concluded that upon the facts asserted by Poster, the Producers were entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Poster appealed, and we affirmed per curiam sub nom. Poster Exchange, Inc. v. Paramount Film Distributing Corp., 5 Cir. 1965, 340 F.2d 320. 6

Poster's action against National Screen still remained, and it ultimately won a judgment for damages suffered day to day for the four years prior to initiation of its suit. On National Screen's appeal we affirmed. Poster Exchange Inc. v. National Screen Service Corp., 5 Cir. 1970, 431 F.2d 334. A few days thereafter Poster initiated this suit against National Screen and all six Producers, complaining that National Screen had continued in its monopoly and attempted monopoly in violation of Sherman Act § 2 and that all the defendants had continued in a "combination and conspiracy . . . in unreasonable restraint of the interstate trade and commerce in the production and distribution of standard and specialty accessories in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act," through the date of suit, all to the considerable pecuniary damage of Poster.

The district court then granted summary judgment in favor of the Producers on grounds of limitations 7 and res judicata, and Poster appealed. We reversed. Poster Exchange, Inc. v. National Screen Service Corp., 5 Cir.1972, 456 F.2d 662. First, we held that the res judicata reasoning relied upon by the trial court could not support its judgment. Second, we held that the intervening decision in Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc., 1971, 401 U.S. 321, 91 S.Ct. 795, 28 L.Ed.2d 77, required a reversal of the district court's conclusion on the limitations issue. Anticipating the significance of collateral estoppel issues on remand, we additionally directed the district court to the principles enunciated in our 1970 opinion in the New Orleans litigation, Exhibitors Poster Exchange, Inc. v. National Screen Service Corp., 5 Cir. 1970, 421 F.2d 1313, cert. denied, 1971, 400 U.S. 991, 91 S.Ct. 454, 27 L.Ed.2d 439. We observed that:

With respect to post-1961 actions which substantively are not foreclosed by the 1963 summary judgment, Poster may recover damages for all such acts which occurred within four years of the 1969 suit. As to such acts occurring prior to 1965, it can recover for such damages as could not reasonably have been proved prior to February 26, 1965. . . .

456 F.2d at 667. Moreover, in remanding the case we advised that:

Good judicial husbandry calls for an effective pretrial management of this case which has now occupied the attention of not less than four trial judges, fifteen Circuit judges and Supreme Court justices twice. (T)he District Court should require by suitable means that Poster outline in detail what its claim is. The Court should determine as to the parties to the 1963 suit what, if any, issues were necessarily determined in the 1963 summary judgment . . .. Then, with precision, Poster should demonstrate what post-1961 acts substantively constitute antitrust violations on theories declared in (our 1970 opinion in the New Orleans litigation). With respect to such substantive acts occurring prior to February 26, 1965, Poster should show the relevant facts on which to fix the earliest reasonable time or times for which damages for such claim or claims could have been proved to fix the commencement of the limitations period under Zenith. Considering the persistent inability of Poster to appreciate the significance of res judicata collateral estoppel or the difficulties from parrotting the prior complaints in amended ones covering different periods of time and, on the other hand, like persistence by National (Screen) in asserting contentions now so often rejected by us, it would surely be in order to appoint a special master (F.R.Civ.P. 53), with his allowance to be taxed as costs for an orderly determination of just what remains to be disposed of by summary judgment on the basis of the facts, not just pleadings, or by trial.

456 F.2d at 668.

Pursuant to our recommendation, on remand the district court did appoint a master to facilitate the progress of Poster's lawsuit. In a response to the master's order to outline in detail the precise nature of its claims and state "the specific acts (or nonacts) of the defendants to be relied upon as proof of (the alleged) violations," Poster recited the pre-1961 history of dealings between the Producers and National Screen in regard to the standard motion picture accessory market, and charged that all the defendant Producers have persisted through the four-year period preceding suit (February 26, 1965, to February 26, 1969) in their alleged exclusive dealing with National Screen. As in Exhibitors Poster Exchange, Inc. v. National Screen Services Corp., 5 Cir., 517 F.2d 110, No. 74-1459, the plaintiff asserted no basis for belief or inference that the alleged Producer-conspirators have engaged in conduct different in any way from that complained of in the prior suit against them. After an exhaustive review of the record in the prior case in which the Producers had won summary judgment, the master determined that in this action Poster complains only of the Producers' continuation in the conduct adjudged lawful in the district court's 1963 summary judgment in their favor. The master thus concluded that the Producers who were defendants in that prior action were...

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