Whether the Parker state-action immunity doctrine, as refined by Midcal Aluminum, extends to a private equity firm's 75-year monopoly control of a municipality's parking meter system absent clear state authorization and active state supervision of the private entity's pricing and operational decisions

No question identified. : APPLICATION FOR EXTENSION OF TIME TO FILE A PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO: Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Circuit Court Justice for the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit: Under this Court’s Rules 13.5 and 22, Applicants Micah Uetricht and John Kaderbek request an additional fifty-eight days to file their petition for a writ of certiorari. The petition will challenge the precedential decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Uetricht, et al., v. Chi. Parking Meters, LLC, 64 F.4th 827 (7th Cir. 2023), a copy of which is attached. In support of this application, Uetricht and Kaderbek provide the following information: 1. The Seventh Circuit issued its decision and judgment on April 7, 2023. App. 1. The timely filed petition for rehearing en banc was decided on May 8, 2023. App. 29. Unless extended, the time to file a petition for certiorari will expire on August 6, 2023. With the requested extension of fifty-nine days, the petition would be due on October 4, 2023. This Court’s jurisdiction will be based on 28 U.S.C. § 1254(1). 2. This case is a serious candidate for review. The appellate decision has created a conflict of the federal Circuits on two distinct issues of public importance under the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1 and 2. Both issues involve the scope of a judicially created doctrine, the State-action immunity from federal antitrust laws under Parker v. Brown, 317 U.S. 341 (1943). This doctrine is intended to protect the sovereignty of the States. The applicants contend that as a private equity firm, the Defendant Chicago Parking Meters, LLC, (“CPM”) has no Parker state-action immunity for a 75-year monopoly control of Chicago’s on-street parking system, consisting of approximately 37,000 meters that CPM will continue to operate and from which it will collect revenue for most of the rest of the century. Applicants have challenged CPM’s monopoly profiteering from the City’s on-street parking meter system for 75 years as a violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 2. In addition, Applicants have challenged the CPM monopoly as an unreasonable restraint of trade, as an exclusive dealing contract of unreasonable length, precluding competition from other rivals, and from resumption of control by the City itself, as in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1. The Applicants have suffered economic injury. Under the CPM Agreement, the Applicants and other citizens have paid and now pay the highest rates of any major city in the country and far higher than in cities of comparable size. However, the Applicants have no claim for damages and do not seek to certify a class for damages. Rather, Applicants seek an order that the CPM Agreement, having run over 14 years, is now terminable at will by the City without penalty. 3. CPM is causing continuing harm by operation of its private monopoly control over the pricing and rental of public curb space in commercial areas. For much of the rest of this century, the CPM Agreement precludes the City’s effective decision-making authority over the City’s parking meter rates, the number of City on-street meters, the hours of operation, redesigns of the City’s parking system now and in coming years for alternative forms of transportation, and the needed removal and relocation of meters for public safety and better flow of traffic. The CPM Agreement does so by requiring that the City reimburse CPM for the present fair market value of any City regulation that may decrease CPM’s expected monopoly profit over the remainder of the term. No matter how legitimate the public need, the CPM Agreement creates financial penalties and barriers to any such City improvement or regulation. 4. The City entered the Agreement with CPM in 2008 for the sum of $1.15 billion, and CPM already has made a windfall with 60 years to run. CPM’s annual revenue from the monopoly was $1136.2 million in 2021, as reported in the