Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST—EDNY: Former New York City Attorney Lacked Standing to Pursue Antitrust Claim Against City for Alleged Later Interference with Private Practice, (Jan 15, 2013)

By E. Darius Sturmer, J.D.

In a case arising out of an employment discrimination and retaliation dispute between an attorney and numerous individuals tied to her former employer, the Office of Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, the federal district court in Brooklyn dismissed antitrust claims asserted by the attorney against the City on standing grounds (Pressley v. City of New York, January 14, 2013, Townes, S.).

The attorney alleged that after she had ceased to work for the city, and then for a firm that performed many legal services for the city, she started her own practice at the same address as the city law department. There, she said, city employees who oversaw the mail room engaged in “search-and-seizure” mail activity and wrongfully obtained information that was later used to cause her to lose a case assignment defending a major client. This interference amounted to a violation of federal antitrust law, she claimed.

Averring the City of New York to have a “unique…monopoly” over personal injury litigation, on which she relied for her income, the attorney professed antitrust injury from the “unfair loss” of her employment to defend the major client and from the asserted fact that she “ha[d] not and [would] not receive any cases defending City agencies” because of retaliation for her Equal Employment Opportunity complaints against the City’s law department. The plaintiff complained that the city’s actions were “destructive, even fatal,” to her and her firm’s ability to fairly compete in the personal injury/insurance defense trade.

These allegations were insufficient to confer standing, however, because they were not accompanied by facts supporting the notion that competition overall had been reduced. The court reiterated the proclamation of the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown Shoe v. United States, 370 U.S. 294 (1962), that the antitrust laws “were enacted for the protection of competition, not competitors.”

The case is No. 11-CV-3234 (SLT)(RER).

Attorneys: Melissa Pressley, pro se. Adam Colon (Littler Mendelson PC) for City of New York.

Cases: Antitrust NewYorkNews