The Ninth Circuit Affirms Plaintiffs’ Robinson-Patman Act Win

Key Takeaways

• In a Robinson-Patman Act (RPA)-related dispute between the manufacturer and wholesalers of Clear Eyes, a brand of eye drops, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed[1] a rare jury verdict for plaintiffs.  
• The Ninth Circuit concluded that:
  • Membership fees alone do not insulate club stores from liability.
  • To establish a Section 2(a) violation, plaintiffs need to show a reasonable (not substantial) possibility of harm to competition.
  • A rebate offered directly to a customer at checkout must be factored into the club store’s effective purchase price.
• Overall, this decision could make it easier for plaintiffs to prevail on RPA claims.

The Robinson-Patman Act is a New Deal-era statute prohibiting sellers from charging different prices to competing purchasers.[2]

Ninth Circuit Affirms RPA Jury Verdict

On February 24, 2026, the Ninth Circuit upheld a jury verdict finding that Prestige Consumer Healthcare, Inc. and its subsidiary Medtech Products, Inc. (together, Prestige) violated the RPA. The case centered on whether Prestige sold its Clear Eyes eye drops to large club stores at lower prices than it charged smaller wholesale distributors.

The wholesaler plaintiffs contended that Prestige discriminated against them in two key ways. First, they claimed that Prestige charged them higher invoice prices than it charged club stores. Second, the club stores offered promotional instant rebates and advertising program opportunities that the plaintiffs claimed were never made available to them. Plaintiffs alleged that those pricing disparities made it hard for them to compete effectively with the club stores.

Takeaway 1 – Not All Operational Differences Insulate Club Stores From Liability

Prestige challenged the district court’s refusal to instruct the jury that plaintiff wholesalers must have been competing with club stores for “the same dollar.”[3] Prestige argued that the club stores’ membership structure meant they were largely serving a different market and customer base than the wholesaler plaintiffs. The Ninth Circuit was not persuaded in this case. It agreed with the district court that club stores fit within the “typical chain store paradigm” recognized in earlier Ninth Circuit RPA precedent[4] and saw no reason based on the proof in this case to draw a distinction between club stores and more traditional wholesalers.

The takeaway is that what mattered to the Ninth Circuit in this case is whether the favored purchasers and plaintiffs share geographical proximity, purchase goods of the same grade and quality around the same time, and compete for at least some of the same retail customers.[5] If those boxes are checked, courts are more likely to find them in competition with one another for RPA purposes.

Takeaway 2 – Section 2(a) Violations Require a Reasonable Possibility of Harm to Competition

On appeal, Prestige argued that the district court erred by failing to instruct the jury that plaintiffs must demonstrate substantial harm to competition to prove a violation. Under Section 2(a) of the RPA, price discrimination is unlawful when its effect “may be substantially to lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce, or to injure, destroy, or prevent competition” with those who grant or receive the discriminatory pricing or with their customers.[6]

The Ninth Circuit disagreed, holding that “[a] showing of substantial harm is not required to establish competitive injury”[7] because “substantially” did not directly modify “to injure, destroy, or prevent competition.” The court endorsed the district court’s utilization of the American Bar Association’s Model Jury Instructions in Civil Antitrust Cases, which requires a plaintiff to establish “a reasonable possibility of harm to competition” in Section 2(a) cases.[8] The practical result of this interpretation is that RPA claims in the Ninth Circuit remain subject to a somewhat more plaintiff-friendly standard. 

Takeaway 3 – Rebates Provided to End Customers Directly Should Be Considered 

One of Prestige’s club store resellers provided customers a “$3.00 instant rebate” on 12-packs of Clear Eyes at checkout, courtesy of Prestige. Prestige argued this rebate should be excluded from the Section 2(a) calculation because it went directly to the end customer—not to the reseller itself. The Ninth Circuit rejected this argument, affirming the district court’s holding that “rebates given to [club store] customers at the checkout register must be counted toward the calculation of the net price at which Prestige sold Clear Eyes to [club stores].”[9] The court explained that in its view, “[a]t bottom, the rebate at issue here reduced [the club store’s] net price for a box of Clear Eyes. And [the club store] used that cost reduction to lower the prices of Clear Eyes for its customers[.]”[10]

The practical takeaway is that structuring promotional programs to flow through end customers—rather than directly to resellers—may not insulate a company from RPA liability. 

Conclusion

Although RPA enforcement may not be a current Federal Trade Commission priority, the Ninth Circuit’s decision is a reminder that private enforcement of the RPA continues and in fact is increasing. 

Endnotes

[1] L.A. Int’l Corp. v. Prestige Brands Holdings, Inc., No. 24-3776, 2026 WL 504763 (9th Cir. Feb. 24, 2026).

[2] 15 U.S.C. § 13(a).

[3] Prestige Brands Holdings, 2026 WL 504763, at *8.

[4] U.S. Wholesale Outlet & Distrib., Inc. v. Innovation Ventures, LLC, 89 F.4th 1126, 1147 (9th Cir. 2023).

[5] Prestige Brands Holdings, 2026 WL 504763, at *9.

[6] 15 U.S.C. § 13(a).

[7] Prestige Brands Holdings, 2026 WL 504763, at *7.

[8] ABA Model Instructions, Robinson-Patman Act, Seller Liability—Section 2(a), Instruction No. 10, Competitive Injury; see also U.S. Wholesale Outlet & Distrib., Inc. v. Innovation Ventures, LLC, 89 F.4th 1126, 1134 (9th Cir. 2023) (listing the requirements of secondary-line discrimination but not including the word “substantial”).

[9] Prestige Brands Holdings, 2026 WL 504763, at *10.

[10] Id.