• Eleventh Circuit Reverses District Court Dismissal On Shotgun Pleading And Standing Grounds
   

  09/07/2022
  On August 26, 2022, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded a district court’s dismissal of an antitrust lawsuit filed against Defendants Google LLC, YouTube Inc., and Alphabet Inc. on shotgun pleading and antitrust standing grounds.  Inform Inc. v. Google LLC, No. 21-13289 (11th Cir. Aug. 26, 2022).  The Court ruled that plaintiff Inform Inc.’s amended complaint, while lengthy and perhaps unclear, sufficiently put defendants on notice of their alleged antitrust violations in the markets for online advertising and that plaintiff met the Eleventh Circuit’s two-prong test for pleading antitrust standing.
  
  Plaintiff distributes and delivers video advertisements into articles on newspaper, magazine, and television websites.  Plaintiff alleges that between 2014 and 2017 defendants “decimated” its business by phasing out the ability to use the Adobe “Flash” software to support video advertisements across defendants’ platforms and products in favor of the “HTML5” video advertising software.  Plaintiff claims that publishers, advertisers, and distributors who previously used Flash to support their advertisements had to either convert their content to HTML5 on their own or use one of defendants’ products to so.  Plaintiff alleges that this costly process caused their business (as well as “hundreds” of other competitors) to “wither[] and die[],” while defendants “plundered” the video advertisements that these companies had previously distributed.
  
  Plaintiff filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia alleging that defendants’ conduct was anticompetitive under Sections 1 (unreasonable restraint on trade) and 2 (monopoly maintenance, monopoly leveraging, attempted monopolization, and exclusive dealing) of the Sherman Act, and Section 3 (exclusive dealing and tying) of the Clayton Act.  The district court dismissed plaintiff’s original complaint without prejudice as a shotgun pleading, and its amended complaint with prejudice as a shotgun pleading and for failing to plead antitrust standing.  The district court concluded that the amended complaint was “rife with immaterial factual and conclusory allegations” and “does not specify which defendants are responsible for which act or omissions.”  Further, the district court ruled that plaintiff had not met the two-factor test for establishing antitrust standing (as explained below).  Plaintiff appealed and the Court reviewed the issue of shotgun pleading for an abuse of discretion and of antitrust standing de novo.
  
  First, the Court ruled that the amended complaint is not a shotgun pleading in violation of either Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) or 10(b).  Citing Eleventh Circuit precedent, the Court explained that dismissal on shotgun pleading grounds is appropriate when “it is virtually impossible to know which allegations of fact are intended to support which claim(s) for relief.”  The Court noted that while the complaint “is certainly long and may not be a paragon of clarity,” that did not prevent defendants from understanding the basis of plaintiff’s core antitrust claims for monopolization offenses—in fact, the district court even included a chart in its dismissal order that accurately mapped which paragraphs of the complaint corresponded to each claim.  The amended complaint also alleges the conduct attributable to each defendant, describing specific acts of wrongdoing by Google (including acquiring competitors, dominating markets, and excluding rivals) and YouTube (including facts showing how YouTube contributes and benefits from Google’s conduct).  Accordingly, the Court ruled that the amended complaint does not fail to give defendants notice of the claims against them and the grounds on which each claim rests.
  
  Next, the Court ruled that plaintiff sufficiently pled antitrust standing under the 11th Circuit’s two prong test for determining antitrust standing: (1) that it had suffered an antitrust injury, and (2) that it was an efficient enforcer of antitrust laws.  The Court ruled that plaintiff adequately alleged antitrust injury by pleading (among other allegations) that it lost millions of dollars because defendants excluded it (and other competitors) from competing in the online advertising markets and that defendants used their control over the markets to preference their own offerings to the detriment of competitors and consumers.  With regard to the second prong, the Court ruled that plaintiff was an efficient enforcer of the antitrust laws as plaintiff is a “would-be competitor excluded from the online advertising markets.”  While the Court agreed that even if advertisers, publishers, or Adobe were better suited to bring the action, a plaintiff merely needs to be an efficient enforcer of the antitrust laws (rather than the best positioned party) to satisfy the second prong of the test.  Accordingly, plaintiff satisfied the test for pleading antitrust standing.
  
  Finally, the Court declined to affirm the district court’s decision on Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) grounds (as defendants requested) because the district court did not rule on such grounds.  Accordingly, the Court reversed and remanded the district court’s ruling.
  
  This case serves as a reminder that a well-plead antitrust complaint—particularly one with several causes of action and defendants—must tie plausibly pleaded facts to specific antitrust claims and put defendants on notice of their alleged wrongdoing.
  CATEGORIES: Antitrust Standing, Pleading Standards
  

LINKS & DOWNLOADS

• Inform Inc. v. Google LLC