Keurig Must Face Rogers Family Coffee’s Pod Monopoly Case at Trial

A federal judge has refused to throw out Rogers Family Coffee’s monopoly case against Keurig, which means it now heads to trial, O’Dwyer’s reports. Rogers, the Lincoln, Calif., company behind San Francisco Bay coffee, was one of the first independent makers of pods for Keurig brewers, and it has been fighting Keurig in court for close to 13 years.

According to O’Dwyer’s, Judge Vernon Broderick of the Southern District of New York issued a 139-page opinion on Sept. 18 that was only recently unsealed. He turned down Keurig’s request to end the case on the central questions: whether Keurig had monopoly power, whether competition was harmed, and the exclusionary contracts Rogers says it used. Rogers claims Keurig illegally dominated the single-serve pod market for more than a decade, and the suit also includes false advertising claims. Rogers CEO Lisa Smoot called the ruling a huge win for the family business.

This isn’t a verdict. Letting claims go to trial isn’t a finding that Keurig broke the law, and O’Dwyer’s didn’t report a trial date. Inc. has put $1.2 billion on what could be at stake, but we weren’t able to read that piece, so treat the figure as Inc.’s, not ours.

Our take: nothing changes for your morning cup today. Third-party K-Cups are everywhere now, and plenty of the cheapest pods on the shelf aren’t Keurig’s. But a trial would put on the record how Keurig dealt with rival pod makers back when it tried to lock them out, which owners of older machines will remember from the Keurig 2.0 pod workarounds. If you’re weighing brand pods against store brands, our Keurig cost-per-cup breakdown shows how much the choice adds up.