Latest Case: Automotive Alignment & Body Service, Inc. v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. (Antitrust & Trade Regulation)

Which Laws Apply to Broker-Dealers? Federal Laws? State Laws? Both? General Principles Leading to an Answer

TAMAR FRANKEL

BU Law emerita professor Tamar Frankel explains the law of preemption as it pertains to broker-dealers and their investor clients. She predicts, among other things, that either the clients will demand that broker-dealers adhere to a fiduciary duty, or else that states will impose that duty on them.

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Automotive Alignment & Body Service, Inc. v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co.

Dockets: 15-14160, 15-14162, 15-14178, 15-14179, 15-14180, 17-12583, 16-13596, 16-13601, 16-15467

Opinion Date: March 6, 2020

Judge: William Holcombe Pryor, Jr.

Areas of Law: Antitrust & Trade Regulation

Automotive body shops filed suit against major automobile insurance companies, alleging claims for relief under the Sherman Act and state law based on the insurance companies' alleged anticompetive practices. The Eleventh Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction to decide the merits of the Indiana and Utah appeals because the orders dismissing the first amended complaints became final judgments under Hertz Corporation v. Alamo Rent-ACar, Incorporated, 16 F.3d 1126 (11th Cir. 1994), when the deadline to amend expired. However, the court held that it had jurisdiction to review the order dismissing the Mississippi body shops’ antitrust claims. The court also held that the district court correctly dismissed the antitrust claims; the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the Mississippi body shops' motion to reconsider its dismissal of their antitrust claims; and the district court correctly dismissed most of the Mississippi body shops' claims under state law. Accordingly, the court vacated in part, affirmed in part, and remanded for further proceedings.