A St. Louis gas station operator may be forced to pay $5.6 million after it allegedly forced the longtime owner of a competing gas station to go out of business, a posting on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website said.
Christopher Westmoreland, the owner of a small, locally owned gas station, was slowly forced out of business and filed a lawsuit against the competitor, Midwest-St. Louis LLC, which does business as Gas Mart 6, claiming it repeatedly charged less for gas, drawing customers from Westmoreland's station, the posting said.
Jeremy Gogel of the Gogel Law Firm in St. Louis, who is representing Westmoreland in the case, recentlt discussed the situation with the St. Louis Record.
Jeremy Gogel, attorney
| Courtesy of Jeremy Gogel
"My client's father opened up this gas station in 1968 on North Broadway, and the client ended up taking it over in the '90s after his dad retired," Gogel told the St. Louis Record. "He grew up in the business, learned the business from his father, the station had been in continuous operation since 1968 and around 2000, because the station was getting old, they wanted to renovate it."
Gogel said that the bank financed the renovations of the plaintiff's gas station, as Westmoreland had always been trustworthy and a good steward of his money, which were in the balance of about $1.8 million.
The building renovations were completed in 2002, and in 2012, Gas Mart, with a branch located near Westmoreland's station, began to feel the sting from the new and improved station of Westmoreland's.
"Everything else being equal, if you're coming off the highway, you're going to go to the nicer, newer station; the only way that Gas Mart thought it could compete with the new station was with price," Gogel said.
Gogel said that gas stations are mostly profitable due to the sales made on their gas, and that two-thirds of the revenue is made from gas sales. While competition does allow for the consumer to make a wise financial choice, it isn't meant to be severely lopsided for long.
"We ended up proving at trial that over a period of 9-10 months, under the law, they (Gas Mart) violated the law about 61 times," Gogel said. "When we talk about how much below cost they're selling, it could have been anywhere between a penny below what they paid up to 10 or 20 cents below cost."
Regardless of the price difference, Gogel said, if the only way competition can survive is by matching the price, the competition will lose money on every single gallon.
"Folks don't really understand that the law is designed to prevent a monopoly from occurring, which will ultimately harm the public," Gogel said.
On Nov. 30, a ruling by St. Louis Circuit Judge Elizabeth Hogan stated that the total award amount should be $5.6 million, which includes $200,000 in attorneys fees. Gogel expects the defendants to appeal.