US Airways v. Sabre Holdings Corporation

Background

US Airways alleged that Sabre unlawfully maintained monopoly power in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. The claim involved contractual restraints in the 2006 Contract and other alleged anticompetitive conduct.

In an earlier opinion, the court held that US Airways could not recover damages for conduct that was merely Sabre’s performance of the 2006 Contract, because those damages were outside the applicable four-year limitations period. The court also held that US Airways could seek damages arising from other monopolizing conduct if the resulting injury occurred within the four years before the lawsuit was filed.

Motion to Exclude

Sabre moved to exclude proposed trial testimony from US Airways’s damages expert, Dr. Rosa Abrantes-Metz, concerning damages estimates for April 21, 2007, through February 23, 2011. Sabre argued that the estimates should be excluded because they included damages allegedly caused by merely performing the 2006 Contract and did not separate those damages from harm caused by other alleged acts.

The court rejected that argument. It explained that the legally important issue was causation rather than whether the damages expert had separately divided all possible sources of harm. US Airways had to show that actionable exclusionary conduct was a material and but-for cause of its injuries, although that conduct did not have to be the only cause. The court identified Professor Stiglitz as US Airways’s presumed causation expert for that issue.

Once causation was established, the court said antitrust plaintiffs have considerable flexibility in proving the amount of damages. That flexibility is limited because the damages must still be connected, to some degree, to unlawful acts.

The court also rejected Sabre’s reading of Berkey Photo, Inc. v. Eastman Kodak Co. The court said that decision addressed damages attributable to anticompetitive conduct that created or increased monopoly power, as opposed to monopoly power acquired lawfully. Here, the 2006 contractual restraints were not actionable because they were time-barred, not because US Airways had admitted they were lawful.

Ruling

The court held that there would be no disaggregation problem if US Airways could prove that other monopolizing conduct, apart from the 2006 Contract, was a material and but-for cause of the alleged injuries. The jury could then award damages consistent with Dr. Abrantes-Metz’s estimates.

The order denied Sabre’s motion to exclude Dr. Abrantes-Metz’s damages estimates for the specified period. The Clerk of Court was directed to close Docket Number 1136. The order did not decide whether US Airways would ultimately prove causation or prevail on its antitrust claim.