Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST—D. Colo.: College student housing operator stuck with $9.8M verdict, (Sep 30, 2015)

By Greg Hammond, J.D.

An off-campus student housing operator could not overturn a jury’s verdict on a conspiracy to monopolize Sherman Act claim, entering judgment against the operator for nearly $9.8 million in trebled damages. The federal district court in Denver could not conclude that the verdict was decidedly against the weight of the evidence, and therefore denied the operator’s Motions for Judgment as a Matter of Law and for New Trial or to Amend Judgment (Auraria Student Housing at the Regency, LLC v. Campus Village Apartments, LLC, September 24, 2015, Martínez, W.).

Auraria Student Housing at the Regency, LLC, leases and operates an apartment complex that provides off-campus housing for students attending the University of Colorado, Denver (UCD). In 2004, UCD contracted with Campus Village Apartments, LLC to construct student housing near the campus. Campus Village and UCD entered into an agreement whereby UCD would institute a residency requirement for most full-time domestic students to live at Campus Village during the first two semesters of enrollment. Auraria filed suit against Campus Village, alleging a conspiracy to monopolize in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act, among other claims. The jury found in favor of Auraria, awarding trebled damages in the amount of nearly $9.8 million. Campus Village filed motions for judgment as a matter of law and for new trial or to amend judgment.

Conspiracy. Campus first argued that the breadth of the part of the commerce specified in the court’s instructions to the jury—the entirety of “the rental of dedicated student housing” as a whole, without qualification—required the conclusion that the plaintiff’s evidence of conspiracy and specific intent to monopolize was insufficient to support the verdict, because Auraria’s evidence dealt solely with student housing for freshmen at the Auraria campus of UCD. The court recognized a lack of clarity in the instruction at issue, but agreed with Auraria—that a jury must reasonably have inferred that the rental market for dedicated student housing at issue was constrained to the UCD students attending the Auraria campus. The motions were therefore denied with regard to the conspiracy claim.

Statute of limitations. Next, Campus claimed that there was insufficient evidence to support the use of the “continuing conspiracy” exception to the four-year statute of limitations, and that the statute of limitations issue should have been submitted to the jury rather than decided as a matter of law. The court found no reason to reconsider its ruling, however, because Campus provided no new argument or point to any evidence that the court had not already considered in finding the continuing conspiracy theory applicable. In addition, the court noted that Campus never explained how a ruling on the continuing conspiracy exception that holds in Campus’ favor would be permissible as a matter of law, but a ruling in Auraria’s favor impermissibly intrudes on the jury’s function to determine the facts. Both motions were therefore denied based on the statute of limitations arguments.

State action immunity. Lastly, Campus claimed that it acted pursuant to express statutory authorization and is therefore immune from suit. However, because Campus failed to raise this issue in its Rule 50(a) motion, the court found that Campus waived the argument for purposes of its Rule 50(b) motion.

The case number is 10-cv-2516-WJM-KLM.

Attorneys: Thomas P. McMahon (Jones & Keller, PC) for Auraria Student Housing at the Regency, LLC. Sarah Levine Hartley (Bryan Cave LLP) for Campus Village Apartments, LLC.

Companies: Auraria Student Housing at the Regency, LLC; Campus Village Apartments, LLC

Cases: Antitrust ColoradoNews