The court battle between Mack Trucks Inc. and an Ohio Mack dealership took another sharp turn Tuesday when a federal appeals court revived the dealership's antitrust claim, finding that the trial judge had erred by refusing to allow the claim to go to the jury.

In its 53-page opinion in Toledo Mack Sales & Service Inc. v. Mack Trucks Inc., a unanimous three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the dealership had presented direct evidence of two alleged price-fixing conspiracies.

Toledo Mack claimed in the suit that Mack instituted policies designed to discriminate against it because its business approach was to sell trucks at low prices - an approach Toledo Mack claimed conflicted with Mack's interest in keeping truck prices high.

The suit alleged both a horizontal conspiracy - among the Mack dealers - and a vertical conspiracy between the dealers and Mack. However, Mack Trucks Inc. was the only defendant named in the suit.

Writing for the court, U.S. Circuit Judge Kent A. Jordan found that the trial judge, Senior U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter, had erred by excluding some of the plaintiff's best evidence on statute-of-limitations grounds.

In the appeal, lawyers for Toledo Mack argued that Buckwalter erred by requiring it to prove its case exclusively with post-1998 evidence.

Instead, they argued, although Toledo Mack's damages were limited to the period from 1998 to 2002, it should have been allowed to present evidence dating back to 1989, when the alleged conspiracy began.

Jordan agreed, finding that under a "continuing violation" theory, Toledo Mack should have been allowed to present all of its evidence that the conspiracy existed even if its damages would be limited to the final four years.

"Toledo was not required to prove an illegal conspiracy with evidence restricted to the limitations period," Jordan wrote in an opinion joined by 3rd Circuit Judges Maryanne Trump Barry and Thomas M. Hardiman.

"Its burden was, rather, to present evidence sufficient to allow a rational jury to conclude that Mack and its dealers committed during the limitations period overt acts in furtherance of an illegal conspiracy or conspiracies, even if the conspiracies began before the limitations period," Jordan wrote.

Although Toledo Mack was seeking damages only for acts committed from 1998 to 2002, Jordan said, "It is entitled to present evidence from outside that period to sustain its burden of proof."

The ruling is a victory for attorneys Robert L. Byer, Wayne A. Mack Jr., J. Manly Parks, James H. Steigerwald and David A. Degnan of Duane Morris.

For Mack, the ruling revives a case that had resulted in a spectacular victory when a federal jury not only rejected all of the plaintiff's claims - for which it was seeking more than $14 million - but went on to award Mack more than $11.3 million on its counterclaim.

In a post-trial ruling, Buckwalter slashed more than $9.7 million from a jury's award to Mack on its counterclaims for misappropriation of trade secrets after finding that the jury was too generous and that the award should be reduced to $1.6 million.

Midway through the monthlong trial, Toledo Mack had suffered a major setback when Buckwalter dismissed its only federal claim - an antitrust claim under the Sherman Act - leaving only two state law claims to go to the jury.

In its verdict, the jury found against Toledo Mack on a claim of discrimination under the Ohio Motor Vehicle Dealers Act and a claim of tortious interference with contractual relations.

Now the 3rd Circuit has ruled that the Sherman Act claim must be submitted to a jury because Toledo Mack presented direct evidence of both alleged conspiracies.

Jordan found that Toledo Mack "presented several pieces of direct evidence for the existence of one or more agreements among Mack dealers not to compete with each other."

Mack's lawyers - Barbara M. Mather, Jeremy Heep, Christopher J. Huber and Barak A. Bassman of Pepper Hamilton - argued on appeal that Buckwalter was right to dismiss the Sherman Act claim without sending it to the jury because Toledo Mack had failed to prove the exact extent of the alleged illegal agreements.

Jordan disagreed, saying: "It may well be that Toledo [Mack]'s inability to present the details of any agreement among dealers would leave a jury unpersuaded that such agreements did in fact exist. That, however, is not our inquiry."

Instead, Jordan said, "We must consider whether the evidence entitles Toledo to place that question before the jury at all. We believe it does."

Jordan found that Toledo Mack also presented "direct evidence that Mack agreed with its dealers to support their anti-competitive agreements and that it did so by, among other things, refusing to offer sales assistance to dealers who sought to sell outside" their territories.

Mack's arguments on appeal failed, Jordan said, because its lawyers "would have us view the evidence in the light most favorable to it, even though we are bound to do just the opposite."

Mather could not be reached for comment on the ruling.

Reprinted with permission from The Legal Intelligencer, © ALM Media Properties LLC. All rights reserved.