Section 63 Traditional Approaches

• Library: Commercial Law 2007

Surprisingly, very few Missouri courts have directly addressed standing under the Missouri Antitrust Law, §§ 416.011–416.161, RSMo 2000. The issue, however, has been addressed by federal courts.

Recently, the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Western District affirmed summary judgment in favor of a hospital and against a former surgeon who had asserted antitrust claims against his former employer. Clinch v. Heartland Health, 187 S.W.3d 10 (Mo. App. W.D. 2006). According to the court, the plaintiff surgeon lacked standing because he failed to show that he was a competitor or consumer that suffered a direct antitrust injury. The plaintiff surgeon could not demonstrate that the defendants injured competition by revoking the surgeon’s privileges and entering into exclusive contracts with other cardiac surgeons.

In Alpha Shoe Service v. Fleming Cos., 849 F.2d 352 (8^th Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 942 (1988), the Eighth Circuit ruled that the plaintiffs did not have standing to claim violations of state and federal antitrust law because of the defendant’s decision to keep
the “anchor tenant location” at its shopping center vacant for an extended period. The court concluded that the plaintiffs lacked standing because their economic injury did not result “from anticompetitive activity in an economic market in which...