Rhawn Joseph v. Amazon.com, Inc.
Rhawn Joseph v. Amazon.com, Inc., 46 F.Supp.3d 1095, U.S. Dist. Ct., W.D. Wash. 2014: Plaintiff-publishing company could not bring anti-trust claim as the statute of limitations had passed on the alleged “tying” committed by Amazon.
Rhawn Joseph v. Amazon.com, Inc., 46 F.Supp.3d 1095, U.S. Dist. Ct., W.D. Wash. 2014
Plaintiff is an author and “Print on Demand” (“POD”) book publisher that sells his books on Amazon’s website. Plaintiff sued Amazon on behalf of all POD publishers under a federal anti-trust claim based on alleged unlawful “tying” by Amazon. Plaintiff argues that Amazon is in violation of anti-trust laws by “tying” 1) a POD publisher’s ability to sell their books directly on Amazon with the requirement that 2) these publishers also use a specific POD publishing company owned by Amazon to publish their books.
Amazon argued that Plaintiff’s claim must be dismissed as it is brought years after the statute of limitation has passed – this type of claim can be brought for only 4 years after the date of the alleged “tying” in order to be timely. In this case 6 years had passed. For this reason, the Court ruled in favor of Amazon and dismissed the case.
