Twenty-five local City of Madison taverns face a federal antitrust lawsuit filed by two University of Wisconsin students.

Lommen, Nelson, Cole & Stageberg, a Minneapolis law firm representing the plaintiffs, filed a similar lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court against the bars in 2002 for allegedly fixing alcohol prices.

The federal suit states Madison taverns have been fixing the prices of alcohol for the past 15 years.

However, according to Kendall Harrison of LaFollette, Godfrey & Kahn, the law firm which represents 21 of the 25 taverns involved, the new lawsuit consists of the same set of facts as the previous suit.

"The new suit has been only slightly altered to maintain the legality of having two similar lawsuits filed in court simultaneously," Harrison said.

The plaintiffs did not return calls Wednesday.

The original antitrust lawsuit stemmed from a voluntary agreement by 25 Madison taverns to disallow drink specials on Friday and Saturday nights. City government, as well as the UW, had been pressuring local bars for some time to take action against student binge-drinking.

According to Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, a group of taverns, headed by Marsh Shapiro of the Nitty Gritty, Dick Lyshek of Bullfeather's and Kelly Meuer of State Street Brats, decided to take voluntary action before the city got involved. He added the city would have taken action if the bars had not.

Verveer said in 2002, a professor at UW encouraged three of his students to file an antitrust lawsuit against the 25 taverns for fixing the prices of their alcohol. On April 7, 2005, Dane County Circuit Court dismissed the case.

The plaintiffs then filed an appeal on the state level, which has sat at the Wisconsin Court of Appeals since.

Harrison said by banning drink specials, taverns were trying to comply with political pressure. The bars did what they thought they were supposed to do, he added.

"The ordeal with the filing of the suit was a case of no good deed going unpunished," Harrison said.