Legal Economic Evaluations, Inc. v. Metropolitan Life Insurance

These appeals require us to decide whether consultants who advise tort plaintiffs on structured settlements have suffered antitrust injury when they can’t get information about premiums and rating practices from, or serve as brokers to arrange annuities to fund structured settlements with, life insurance carriers because of an alleged boycott by life insurance carriers and brokers who specialize in arranging annuities in behalf of tort defendants.

A structured settlement takes place when a tort defendant or its liability carrier purchases an annuity, with the tort plaintiff as the beneficiary, to settle a civil lawsuit. Legal Economic Evaluations, Inc., IBAR Settlement Co., and Weil Insurance Agency, Inc. (collectively Weil) are structured settlement consultants to tort plaintiffs. They have sued a number of life insurance carriers 1 and brokers 2 (Life Carriers and Brokers) under *953 § 4 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. § 15 , alleging that the Life Carriers and Brokers conspired to drive consultants and brokers for tort plaintiffs out of the annuity brokering business, thereby ensuring that only brokers for tort defendants would place annuities to fund structured…