Truck-Rail Handling, Inc. v. Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co.

MEMORANDUM *

Truck-Rail Handling, Inc. and Quality Transport, Inc. (collectively, “TRH”) appeal from the district court’s summary judgment of TRH’s allegations that Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. (“BNSF”) violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1 , 2, by requiring transload operators to sign a Transload Service Agreement (“TSA”) as a condition of leasing transload terminals from BNSF. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We review de novo the grant of summary judgment, Oliver v. Keller, 289 F.3d 623, 626 (9th Cir.2002), and we affirm. Because the parties are familiar with the factual and procedural history of this case, we need not recount it here.

Summary judgment was properly granted on TRH’s Section 1 per se price-fixing claim because, whether the alleged restraint is horizontal or vertical, TRH has presented insufficient evidence to support its theory that BNSF dictated the rates that TSA transloaders could charge for their services. See Chisholm Bros. Farm Equip. Co. v. Int’l Harvester Co., 498 F.2d 1137, 1142 (9th Cir.1974) (“The crux of any price-fixing agreement is the relinquishment by a trader ... of the freedom to set prices in…