A California appeals court upheld dismissal of a 2004 lawsuit against Pfizer and 18 other drugmakers alleging they conspired to inflate prices in order to keep cheaper meds from Canada out of the US, leading drugstores to pay more then they should have, Bloomberg News reports. The retailers can’t seek damages, the court rules, because they passed the alleged price increases onto their customers.

“Overlooked by plaintiffs is the fact that they themselves have already been paid for the claimed overcharges, so any recovery of the overcharges from defendants, not to mention treble recovery, would be a windfall to plaintiffs,” the state appeals court decided in a July 25 ruling.

The lawsuit, filed by a group of California drugstores, had been dismissed in 2006 by a state trial judge in Oakland, California, who agreed with the drugmakers’ argument that the retailers couldn’t show they were damaged because they passed on higher prices to customers. The pharmacies claimed they paid four times more than retailers in other countries, and appealed the ruling. Joe Alioto, an attorney for the stores, didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment, Bloomberg writes.