In re: BROILER CHICKEN ANTITRUST LITIGATION, BOSTON MARKET CORPORATION, et al., Class Members-

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted April 17, 2025*
Decided August 6, 2025
Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge
NANCY L. MALDONADO, Circuit Judge
No. 24-2422
IN RE BROILER CHICKEN ANTITRUST LITIGATION,
BOSTON MARKET CORPORATION, et al.,
Class Members-Appellants.
Appeal from the United
States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois,
Eastern Division.
No. 16 C 8637
Thomas M. Durkin,
Judge.
O R D E R
This appeal is part of the same litigation as In re Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation
(Simmons), 133 F.4th 761 (7th Cir. 2025). Simmons held that class members known collec-
tively as Boston Market had failed to opt out on time and are bound by a settlement that
* This successive appeal is being submitted to the original panel under Operating Procedure 6. After
examining the briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral argument is unnecessary. See Fed. R.
App. P. 34(a); Cir. R. 34(f).

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No. 24-2422 Page 2
the class reached with Simmons Foods. Although Boston Market contended that the set-
tlement did not reflect the value of a bid-rigging claim, which the class had agreed to
forgo in exchange for faster resolution, Boston Market is bound by the class’s decision.
We added that the evidence did not show that the settlement produced unreasonably
low value for the class, given the risks of complete defeat in the litigation.
Boston Market also objected to settlements with defendants Koch Foods, Inc.;
House of Raeford Farms, Inc.; and some affiliated parties (collectively Koch). The dis-
trict court rejected that protest in a separate decision, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 150016 (N.D.
Ill. Aug. 12, 2024), which became the object of this appeal. We kept it in stasis until Sim-
mons was resolved and then received supplemental memoranda about how it is affected
by Simmons. The class and the settling defendants ask us to affirm; Boston Market re-
quests summary reversal.
The main issue in this appeal, as in Simmons, is whether Boston Market remained
in the class at the time of the settlement. For the reasons given in our earlier opinion the
answer is yes, as the district judge concluded.
The secondary issue is whether Boston Market, as a class member, has shown
that the settlement is unreasonably small.
When discussing the value of the Simmons settlement, our opinion remarked:
The Boston Market group could have hired an expert to assess the likely
recovery against Simmons if the class prevailed in full, and discount that
by the risk that the class would lose. If that number came in substantially
higher than [the settlement amount], that would fuel an argument against
the district court’s approval of the settlement. But the Boston Market
group did not do this. There is some evidence of this kind bearing on
other settlements, but none bearing on the settlement with Simmons. Nor
is there any evidence addressing the marginal value of a bid-rigging the-
ory, compared with a supply-reduction theory alone.
133 F.4th at 764. Boston Market’s post-Simmons filing contends that a report by Laurel
Van Allen fills the bill for the Koch claims, but it does not.
Van Allen did not try to estimate damages. Instead of conducting a standard an-
titrust-overcharge model, Van Allen just calculated how much higher prices were in
2015 compared with 2014. Yet prices of agricultural commodities vary over time; to ob-
serve this is not to establish either the existence or the effect of collusion. What Boston
Market needed was an estimate of how prices of broiler chickens would have changed

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No. 24-2422 Page 3
without collusion, but Van Allen did not do that. Nor did she try to estimate the mar-
ginal value of a bid-rigging theory compared with a supply-reduction theory alone. Fi-
nally, Van Allen did not try to estimate the likelihood that the class would prevail on
the merits, a step essential to value the released claims. All in all, the exercise does not
undermine the district judge’s conclusion that the Koch settlement is reasonable.
AFFIRMED

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