Suburban Mobile Homes, Inc. v. AMFAC Communities, Inc.

This is an appeal from a judgment of nonsuit rendered in favor of defendants in an action brought for violation of the California antitrust law (Cartwright Act, Bus. & Prof. § 16700 et seq.).

The parties to the lawsuit are plaintiff Suburban Mobile Homes, Inc. (hereafter Suburban or appellant) and four named defendants (hereafter respondents): AMFAC Communities, Inc. (AMFAC), Instant Housing Corp. (Instant), Roberts & Aguirre Mobile Home Sales, Inc. (R & A), and S & S Mobile Home Sales, Inc. (S & S). Suburban is a mobile home dealer with its principal place of business in South San Francisco. AMFAC is the owner and developer of a mobilehome park known as “Franciscan Bay Mobile Country Club” (hereafter Franciscan), located in Daly City, California. The three other respondents are mobilehome dealers, selling mobilehomes in the San Francisco trading area and elsewhere.

The centerpiece of the present litigation is the use of mobilehome sites in the Franciscan. As the relevant evidence reveals, the Franciscan was developed by AMFAC by about 1971. It had 501 mobilehome sites capable of accommodating double-wide mobile homes sold by Suburban. While at the outset the Franciscan…