In Cason-Merendo et al. v. Detroit Medical Center et al., Eastern District ofMichigan Judge Gerald E. Rosen, in a class action suit filed by nurses who claim they were underpaid by hundreds of millions of dollars, granted summary judgment on plaintiffs’ per se antitrust claim that the hospitals conspired to fix wages. In their suit, the nurses claimed that the defendants and their alleged co-conspirators violated the antitrust laws by agreeing not to compete with each other with respect to nurses’ wages, paying nurses at the same or similar rates and jointly recruiting new nurses to avoid competing for new hires. In dismissing the per se claim, the court held that the hospitals used wage data in a series of discrete, individualized compensation decisions, varying in their processes by degree of sponsorship of and participation in surveys, reliance on direct contracts to obtain wage-related information, and selection of surveys and market information when considering and setting compensation. None of this evidence showed that the hospitals acted with a unity of purpose. The court, however, refused to toss the plaintiffs’ “rule of reason” allegation that the hospitals conspired to exchange wage information in a manner that harmed competition by depressing resident nurses’ wages, holding that the question of whether the plaintiffs had failed to show a causal link between the alleged antitrust violation and the antitrust injury was a close one, leaning in the plaintiffs’ favor.