01-3017 42nd Parallel North v. E Street Denim Co., et al.

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“If E Street, a multibrand retailer, possesses market power in retailing the competing product lines of designer jeans and fashion T-shirts in Highland Park, then it can reduce both intrabrand and interbrand competition by pressuring manufacturers not to deal with other retailers. But 42nd nowhere alleges that E Street has such market power. It instead asserts that E Street has eliminated 42nd as a price competitor… [A]lthough 42nd alleges that it can no longer compete with E Street over the jeans and T-shirts at issue, it gives no indication that others cannot. 42nd does not allege that E Street and 42nd were the main rivals selling designer jeans and T-shirts in Highland Park or that they were even particularly important ones. Nor are there allegations regarding either store’s market share during the relevant time period. Competition among retailers in Highland Park may well be thriving, as the complaint itself suggests with regard to Buffalo Jeans: ‘E Street and other stores in the area are filled with the same product that 42nd has been unable to obtain.’

“We also cannot close our eyes to the fact that 42nd’s proposed geographic market is absurdly small… The central business district of Highland Park-not even the whole of Highland Park!-would have to be something of a consumer’s black hole for us to think that trendy shoppers wanting better prices on designer jeans and T-Shirts could not venture to other commercial areas to find them. It doesn’t take a cartographer to know that Highland Park is located in the densely populated north shore suburbs of Chicago, nor does it take a market researcher to know that ‘Chicagoland’ is home to many shopping venues where consumers could find designer jeans and T-shirts. By any sensible awareness of commercial reality, 42nd was swimming in a much larger competitive sea than the complaint lets on.”

Affirmed.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Andersen, J., Evans, J.