In Food Lion LLC et al. v. Dean Foods Co et al., Eastern District ofTennessee Judge J. Ronnie Greer, granted defendants’ Dean Foods Co., Dairy Farmers of America, Inc., and others’, motion for summary judgment, thereby dismissing a direct purchaser multidistrict antitrust litigation over milk prices. In their suit, the retail sellers of processed milk, led by Food Lion LLC, and Family Foods, accused Dean Foods and its co-defendants of (1) implementing agreements to control and threaten southeast dairy farmers’ access to milk bottling plants; (2) required independent dairy farmers to advertise through DFA; and (3) fixed Grade A raw milk prices. In granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment, the court held that the direct purchasers’ claim was not one of horizontal, per se conspiracy, but a claim of an illegal conspiracy involving companies at different levels of distribution, such as between a bottler of processed milk and a supplier of raw milk. The vertical nature of the case required the plaintiffs to satisfy the rule-of-reason, which they could not do because they failed to establish the relevant geographic market.