Sherwood v. Microsoft Corporation
| Decision Date | 31 July 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. M2000-01850-COA-R9-CV.,M2000-01850-COA-R9-CV. |
| Parties | DANIEL SHERWOOD, ET AL. v. MICROSOFT CORPORATION, ET AL. |
| Court | Tennessee Court of Appeals |
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Davidson County No. 99C-3562, Walter C. Kurtz, Judge.
Judgment of the Circuit Court, Affirmed in Part, Reversed in Part and Remanded.
Leo Bearman, Jr., Memphis, Tennessee, James A. DeLanis, Richard H. Stout, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellants, Microsoft Corporation and Does 1 through 100, inclusive.
C. Dewey Branstetter, Jr., James G. Stranch, III, George E. Barrett, Edmund L. Carey, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellees, Daniel Sherwood, Roy Coggins and wife Sheila Coggins d/b/a Microfilm Services and William Overton, Individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated.
PATRICIA J. COTTRELL, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which BEN H. CANTRELL, P.J., M.S., and WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., joined.
In this appeal, Plaintiffs, purchasers of Microsoft software, sued Microsoft alleging that the company violated the Tennessee Trade Practices Act and the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act and claiming that they paid inflated prices for software due to Microsoft's alleged violations of Tennessee antitrust law. Microsoft filed a motion to dismiss arguing that Tennessee antitrust law applies to activities that are predominantly intrastate in character and that Microsoft's business is predominantly interstate. Microsoft also argued that indirect purchasers have no cause of action under the Tennessee Trade Practices Act. The trial court found that federal law does not provide a remedy for indirect purchasers in antitrust cases and, consequently, those purchasers must have a Tennessee state law remedy. The trial court denied the motion to dismiss the claims of the indirect purchasers, but because direct purchasers have a federal law remedy, dismissed the claims of the direct purchasers. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and hold: (1) indirect purchasers may bring an action for damages under the Tennessee Trade Practices Act; (2) the Tennessee Trade Practices Act applies to activity that has substantial effects on commerce within the state, and Plaintiffs have made sufficient allegations of such effects; and (3) the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act does not apply to antitrust causes of action or anticompetitive conduct.
In this interlocutory appeal Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") appeals the judgment of the trial court that indirect purchasers of Microsoft software, purchasers who bought a computer with the software installed or purchased the software from a dealer, have a cause of action against Microsoft pursuant to the Tennessee Trade Practice Act ("TTPA") and the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act ("TCPA"). Plaintiffs appeal the decision of the trial court dismissing the claims of the direct purchasers, those who bought the software directly from Microsoft.
This appeal raises difficult and complex issues of state law, and its interrelationship to federal law, that have been unaddressed in depth by the courts of this state in almost a century. With the aid of informative and well drafted briefs by the parties, we have given thorough consideration to those issues.
Plaintiffs filed suit seeking damages, injunctive relief, and equitable remedies under the TTPA, Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 47-25-101 to -2704, and the TCPA, Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 47-18-101 to -1808. The Plaintiffs are a class1 comprised of users of personal computers who bought Microsoft software, either separately or loaded in a computer. Plaintiffs alleged that Microsoft, the leading supplier of operating systems software for personal computers, engaged in conduct that eliminat or retarded the development of new software products that could support or become alternative platforms to Microsoft's operating systems. The Plaintiffs also contended that the price that they paid for their software was higr than it would have been in a competitive market. They emphasized the "massive" involvement of Microsoft in the Tennessee economy, and contended that Microsoft's conduct was within the scope of the TTPA and the TCPA.
The trial court dismissed the claims of the direct purchasers and allowed the claims of the indirect purchasers. In its order, the court considered the history of the TTPA and Tennessee appellate courts' interpretation of the Act and found state law to "start where federal law stops." Further, the trial court held "that the TTPA is to cover `all commerce not covered by the federal statute' and that the intention of the legislature was to ensure that there was no void where neither federal nor state law governs." Noting that indirect purchasers lacked standing to enforce federal antitrust law and that state antitrust laws could be applied to indirect purchasers, the trial court held that the indirect purchasers herein had a cause of action pursuant to state law. The court dismissed the claims of the direct purchasers.
The issue before us is not whether Microsoft has engaged in conduct violative of either state or federal antitrust law; rather it is whether Plaintiffs have stated a cause of action against Microsoft under Tennessee law. The issues presented involve the scope of Tennessee statutes: (1) their applicability to parties who did not purchase directly from Microsoft; (2) their applicability to business activities that involve interstate commerce; and (3) their applicability to the conduct complained of.
The decision appealed is a partial grant and partial denial of a Tenn. R. Civ. P. 12.02(6) motion. Such a motion is designed to test the sufficiency of the complaint, and dismissal is warranted only when no set of facts would entitle the plaintiffs to relief. Trau-Med of Am., Inc. v. Allstate Ins. Co., 71 S.W.3d 691, 696 (Tenn. 2002). When reviewing the decision on such a motion, this court must take all the well-plead material factual allegations as true, construe the complaint liberally in favor of the plaintiffs, and give the plaintiffs the benefit of all reasonable inferences. Id.; Stein v. Davidson Hotel Co., 945 S.W.2d 714, 716 (Tenn. 1997); Forman, Inc. v. Nat'l Council on Comp. Ins., Inc., 13 S.W.3d 365, 366 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1999).
In their complaint, Plaintiffs alleged specific instances of anticompetitive conduct. More succinctly stated, their allegations are:
Microsoft possesses a dominant, persistent, and increasing share of the world-wide and Tennessee market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems. Because Microsoft's market share is so dominant, it prevents Intel-compatible PC operating systems other than Windows from attracting significant consumer demand. Plaintiffs allege that Microsoft engaged in conduct which eliminated or retarded the development of new software products that could support, or themselves become, alternative platforms to Microsoft's operating systems. Consequently, Plaintiffs and Class members have paid higher prices for Intel-compatible PC operating systems than they would have paid in a competitive market.
Plaintiffs brought this action pursuant to state antitrust law, embodied in the TTPA, which provides, in pertinent part:
All arrangements, contracts, agreements, trusts, or combinations between persons or corporations made with a view to lessen, or which tend to lessen, full and free competition in the importation or sale of articles imported into this state, or in the manufacture or sale of articles of domestic growth or domestic raw material, and all arrangements, contracts, agreements, trusts, or combinations between persons or corporations designed, or which tend, to advance, reduce, or controlhe price or the cost to the producer or the consumer of any such product or article, are declared to be against public policy, unlawful, and void.
Any arrangements, contracts, and agreements that may be made by any corporation or person, or by and between its agents and subagents, to sell and market its products and articles, manufactured in this state, or imported into this state, to any producer or consumer at prices reduced below the cost of production or importation into this state, including the cost of marketing, and a reasonable and just marginal profit, to cover wages or management, and necessary incidentals, as is observed in the usual course of general business, and the continuance of such practice under such contracts and arrangements for an unreasonable length of time, to the injury of full and free competition, or any other arrangements, contracts, or agreements, by and between its agents and subagents, which tend to lessen full and free competition in the sale of all such articles manufactured and imported into the state, and which amount to a subterfuge for the purpose of obtaining the same advantage and purposes are declared to be against public policy, unlawful, and void.
The TTPA provides a number of sanctions for violators, including criminal sanctions and revocation of the right to do business in the state. Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 47-25-103 & -104. While providing for enforcement by the Attorney General, it also provides a remedy to those injured by a violation:
Any person who is injured or damaged by such arrangement, contract, agreement, trust, or combination described in this part may sue for and recover, in any court of competent jurisdiction, from any person operating such trust or combination, the full consideration or sum paid by the person for any goods, wares, merchandise, or articles, the sale of which is controlled by such combination or trust.
Issues of statutory construction are questions of law reviewed by the appellate courts de novo with no presumption of correctness accorded to the findings of the trial court. Bryant v. Genco Stamping Mfg. Co., 33 S.W.3d 761, 765 (Tenn. 2000); Perry v. Sentry Ins. Co., 938...
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