State Action Immunity, Municipalities, And the Unique Case of Eminent Domain‪.‬

I. INTRODUCTION In Pennsylvania v. Susquehanna Area Regional Airport Authority (SARAA I), the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania held that the Susquehanna Area Regional Airport Authority (SARAA or "the airport authority"), a municipal authority operating under a broad enabling act, may exercise its power of eminent domain to condemn a privately owned airport parking service in direct competition with its own parking service without being subject to suit for violations of federal antitrust law. (1) The private lot at issue in SARAA I was the airport authority's sole competitor for parking services provided to travelers flying in and out of the Harrisburg International Airport (HIA). (2) The condemnation will therefore provide SARAA with a monopoly over parking services at the HIA. Despite acknowledging the flagrantly anticompetitive effect of SARAA's conduct, (3) the district court found that SARAA was exempt from antitrust liability under the state action doctrine. (4) Responding to the plaintiff's claim that SARAA was acting with an improper motive--namely, to monopolize the parking services market rather than to serve the public interest--the court suggested that eminent domain proceedings were the appropriate forum for addressing motive. (5)