Winchester Drive-In Theatre, Inc. v. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Co.

ZIRPOLI, District Judge.

This motion presents a question of the applicability of Beacon Theatres v. Westover, 359 U.S. 500, 79 S.Ct. 948, 3 L.Ed. 2d 988 (1959), to a motion by defendants for a separate trial of an affirmative defense in an antitrust suit. The plaintiffs, independent theatre operators, allege that certain exhibitors and distributors of motion picture films violated the antitrust laws by illegal distribution of first run motion pictures in the San Francisco Bay Area. The present motion is one of several made in four cases which have been consolidated for pre-trial purposes. In…