## Facts

- Home Box Office, Inc. (HBO) operated a pay-television service that licensed feature films and produced original sports and entertainment programming requiring television directors and related personnel.
- Directors Guild of America, Inc. (the Guild) represented television film directors and associated workers and maintained industrywide collective bargaining relationships.
- The Guild initially permitted members to work for HBO without a Guild contract while HBO developed its business, but later sought a contract on terms comparable to network agreements.
- HBO resisted the Guild’s proposed terms, which were not discounted from network standards and, in some respects, demanded higher compensation in the cable context.
- The Guild directed members not to work for HBO except under a Guild agreement and sought to pressure production participants to accept Guild terms.
- HBO attempted to use non-Guild and foreign directors; the Guild opposed these efforts and complained to immigration authorities when HBO sought to employ foreign directors.
- Many individuals performing directing functions on HBO productions worked as freelancers or in “dual-capacity” roles (e.g., director-producers and director-packagers) with independent-contractor or entrepreneurial features.
- HBO sued under Sherman Act § 1 seeking an injunction, alleging a group boycott, price fixing through supracompetitive wage demands, and interference with access to non-Guild and foreign directors.
- After a bench trial, the district court entered judgment for defendants and denied injunctive relief.

## Issues

1. Whether the Guild’s directive and related pressure tactics to obtain a collective bargaining agreement with HBO constituted an unlawful restraint of trade under Sherman Act § 1.
2. Whether the statutory and non-statutory labor exemptions barred antitrust liability for the Guild’s conduct, including conduct affecting freelancers and dual-capacity workers.
3. Whether the Guild’s immigration-related complaints and opposition to foreign directors fell outside legitimate labor activity and supported antitrust injunctive relief.

## Decision

- The court denied HBO’s request for an injunction and entered judgment for the Guild and the individual defendants.
- The court concluded HBO failed to prove conduct outside the labor exemptions sufficient to establish a Sherman Act § 1 violation.
- The court treated the Guild’s work directives and related pressure as union economic activity aimed at obtaining a labor agreement rather than product-market regulation.
- The court found the record did not justify antitrust equitable relief based on the claimed effects on HBO’s productions or access to directors, including foreign directors.

## Legal Principles

- Concerted union activity directed at improving wages, hours, and working conditions is generally addressed under labor law and may be insulated from Sherman Act scrutiny by statutory and non-statutory labor exemptions.
- A union’s refusal-to-work campaign and related pressure tactics, when used to obtain a collective bargaining agreement, may constitute protected labor self-help rather than an antitrust “group boycott.”
- The labor exemptions can extend to union efforts involving workers with nontraditional arrangements when the union acts primarily to protect the economic interests of working personnel and the conduct remains tied to mandatory bargaining subjects.
- Antitrust relief requires proof that challenged conduct falls outside the labor exemptions and produces an unreasonable restraint of trade with cognizable anticompetitive effects; technical labor-law classification disputes alone do not establish an antitrust violation.
- Union conduct directed at preserving domestic job opportunities and labor standards, including opposition to the use of foreign labor, may remain within protected labor activity absent proof of collusion with non-labor groups to restrain trade.

## Conclusion

The court held that the Guild’s campaign to secure an HBO collective bargaining agreement, including member work directives and related pressure tactics, was largely protected labor activity and that HBO failed to prove a Sherman Act § 1 restraint of trade warranting injunctive relief.


Home Box Office, Inc. v. Directors Guild of Am., Inc., 531 F. Supp. 578 (S.D.N.Y. 1982)