REGULATION OF BUSINESS-SHERMAN ACT-CONSCIOUS PARALLELISM OF ACTION

Plaintiff attempted to lease first-run films from defendants, major motion picture distributors, for his new theater located six miles from downtown Baltimore in a suburban shopping center. When the defendants, acting separately, refused to make first-run leases to plaintiff, he brought an action for treble damages and an injunction, alleging that he had been injured by a national conspiracy to restrict first-run features to downtown theaters. Plaintiff contended that his showing of conscious parallelism of action on the part of the defendants established an antitrust violation as a matter of law, and that the only question left for the jury was the amount of damage. On certiorari, held, the question of whether an antitrust conspiracy should be inferred from conscious parallelism is factual and therefore is properly submitted to the jury.

Theatre Enterprises v. Paramount Film Distributing Corp., 346 U. S. 537, 74 S. Ct. 257 (1954).