Thomason v. Hospital TV Rentals, Inc., 16300.
| Decision Date | 16 December 1959 |
| Docket Number | No. 16300.,16300. |
| Citation | 272 F.2d 263 |
| Parties | Marvin THOMASON, Appellant, v. HOSPITAL T. V. RENTALS, INC., a corporation, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Charles V. Garnett, Kansas City, Mo., for appellant.
William W. Cochrane, Kansas City, Mo., for appellee.
Before SANBORN, VAN OOSTERHOUT and MATTHES, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from an order of the District Court dismissing the amended complaint of the plaintiff (appellant) upon the ground that it failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.
The question for decision is whether it appears to a certainty that the plaintiff would be entitled to no relief under any state of facts which could be proved in support of his claim. Lada v. Wilkie, 8 Cir., 250 F.2d 211, 212-213 and cases cited; Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-48, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80.
The amended complaint alleged: That the action is based on 15 U.S.C.A. § 15, which gives to any person "injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws" the right to sue therefor in a district court of the United States in the district in which the defendant resides or is found or has an agent, regardless of the amount in controversy, and to recover treble damages; that the plaintiff is a resident of the State of Missouri, and maintains a place of business in Kansas City, Kansas; that the defendant (appellee) is a Colorado corporation having a place of business in Kansas City, Missouri; that the plaintiff is and has been engaged in the business of renting, leasing and servicing television and radio receiving sets to persons receiving medical care in hospitals and infirmaries in Kansas City, Missouri, and Wyandotte and Johnson Counties, Kansas; that the defendant is engaged in the same line of business in the same general area; that prior to November 20, 1958, the defendant made a contract with St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, whereby the defendant and the hospital undertook to agree that none of the patients in the hospital would be permitted to lease a television or radio receiving set except from defendant, and that the hospital would not allow any such sets upon its premises except those owned by the defendant or by the individual patients; that the defendant also, before November 20, 1958, entered into similar contracts with Bethany Hospital and Kansas University Medical Center, both of which are located in Wyandotte County, Kansas; that the contracts were, and are, an unreasonable restraint of trade within the meaning of the antitrust laws of the United States in that they tend to create and do create a monopoly wherein and whereby the defendant is enabled to exclude the plaintiff and others from renting television and radio receiving sets to patients who are receiving hospital care; that plaintiff's television and radio receiving sets move in interstate commerce in fulfilling rental contracts with hospital patients in Missouri; that more than 75% of plaintiff's rental business, at the time of the acts complained of, was transacted with patients confined in Missouri hospitals, and that such business moved in interstate commerce from Kansas to Missouri; that defendant, prior to November 20, 1958, entered into a conspiracy with others to monopolize the business of renting television and radio receiving sets to members of the public confined in St. Luke's Hospital, Bethany Hospital, and Kansas University Medical Center, and thereby unduly and unreasonably to restrain trade or commerce in the distribution and rental of such instruments to all such members of the...
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