Partner Carl Hittinger commented on how communications available to present to the juries in two similar price-fixing cases affected their very different verdicts, in a Law360 article published Dec. 18, 2023. “Biggest Illinois Decisions of 2023” detailed how a Chicago jury rejected thousands of direct chicken buyers' claims that Sanderson Farms banded together with other chicken giants to inflate prices by restricting their supply. About five weeks later, the article noted, a jury sided with major food companies in a 12-year-old lawsuit claiming that two of the nation's largest egg producers and two industry groups had engaged in a similar price-fixing scheme.
Experts agreed that the types of communication presented in the latter case likely went further to convince the jury that a conspiracy existed. "At the end of the day, in these cases, you have to be able to show the jury that … people agreed to do something or not do something, and you have to also show that there was harm," Hittinger explained. “They’re looking for a connection, a causation, a harm and that you’re the bad guy that did it.”