6th Circuit Holds McCarran-Ferguson Act Bars Antitrust Claims Against Title Insurers

On July 17, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its long awaited decision in Katz v. Fidelity National Title Insurance Company, a class action proceeding in which the plaintiffs alleged that a collection of title insurers had unlawfully conspired to set unreasonably high title insurance premiums. In ruling for the defendants and affirming the dismissal of plaintiffs' claims, the court joins a host of other courts around the country that have found similar allegations defective as a matter of law. Unlike in those other cases, however, in which the courts found that plaintiffs' claims failed based upon the Filed Rate Doctrine (most prominently the Third Circuit's recent decisions in In re New Jersey Title Insurance Antitrust Litigation and McCray v. Fidelity National Title Insurance), in Katz the Sixth Circuit held that the claims failed based upon the McCarran-Ferguson Act.