Well at least in the way that Goliath was under attack when David picked up his slingshot. A Seattle-area coffee house owner is suing the giant chain for antitrust violations, reports USA Today.

Penny Stafford is suing after she unsuccessfully tried to get space in a "Class A" office building in downtown Seattle to set up an independent coffee shop. The agents, she alleges, steered her to inferior locations and eventually confessed that Starbucks had tied up all the prime locations. Say it ain’t so!

So she sued. And the case brings up a variety of issues that could possibly reshape antitrust law and real estate. The prime claim is that Starbucks insists on exclusivity and that real estate owners accede to the company’s demands because they think the coffee giant will be a great tenant. And the question is whether that’s fair or not.

There may be some clarification from this case if it gets high enough up the court chain, but be skeptical about talk of wholesale remaking of antitrust law. There’s been plenty of false dawns making similar claims since Sen. Sherman and TR were around and lots of antitrust law is still vague and hard to determine until it gets to court and gets decided on the facts of a particular industry or market.