The Sixth Circuit has heldthat the plaintiff’s failure to specifically plead facts of price discrimination was fatal to New Albany Tractor Inc.’s complaint against Louisville Tractor Inc. and Metalcraft of Mayville Inc. over mowing equipment. The Court cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s Twombly and Iqbaldecisions for the proposition that a plaintiff could not use the discovery process to obtain the facts necessary to allege a plausible complaint. This requirement applied, the court held, even when the information needed to establish a claim of discriminatory pricing is solely within the purview of the defendant or a third party.
New Albany invoked the “indirect purchaser” doctrine — which is meant to stop a manufacturer from protecting itself from Robinson-Patman liability by using a dummy wholesaler to make sales on terms the manufacturer actually controls — to back up its case.
Mowing equipment maker Metalcraft (which does business as Scag Power Equipment) sells equipment and parts indirectly to retailer New Albany through Louisville Tractor, which is both an exclusive distributor and retailer of Scag’s goods in the Louisville, Ky. area, according to New Albany. Scag sold its products to Louisville Tractor at a lower price than it sold the same equipment to New Albany through Louisville Tractor, New Albany claimed. The appeals could held that the complaint was inadequate because New Albany failed to allege that Scag controlled Louisville Tractor to the extent that Scag forced Louisville to sell at a certain price, or that that price was discriminatory.