New developments to come in antitrust – SCOTUS to speak on State Action Doctrine and Class Action

The U.S. Supreme Court has added two cases to its docket for next term that will carry significant consquences on antitrust.

State Action Doctrine (Phoebe Putney)

The Supreme Court will hear from the FTC and the State of Georgia who assert that the Eleventh Circuit misapplied the “state action doctrine” by allowing a hospital combination that clearly displaced competition. The disputed combination of two private hospitals–Phoebe Putney and Palmyra–was facilitated by the Hospital Authority of Albany-Dougherty County. The Eleventh Circuit held that because the state legislature had granted general corporate powers to the Authority, its anticompetitive action was foreseeable and thus protected by the state action doctrine.

In its petition to the Supreme Court, the FTC claims that the state action doctrine should be narrowly construed to those situations where a state entity “clearly articulat[es] a state policy to displace competition,” not merely where it is foreseeable that the entity was aware that anticompetitive action could occur. The FTC also maintains that the state action doctrine should not be construed to permit the “unsupervised transfer of a monopoly into private hands.”

Full content: FTC petition for cert

Class Action Certification (Comcast)

The Supreme Court will consider a Third Circuit decision to affirm the certification of a class action suit against Comcast Corporation. A divided Third Circuit court held that the lower court met the “rigorous analysis” standard of review the law requires before a class action suit can continue. Comcast then petitioned the Supreme Court to review whether the Third Circuit was correct when it declined to consider “merits arguments” in making their decision. At issue was the recent Supreme Court decision Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes and whether its holding that “merits questions” should be answered at the certification stage of a class action suit governed. The Third Circuit held that it did not and relied on a different holding.

The Supreme Court stated they would answer the limited question of “[w]hether a district court may certify a class action without resolving whether the plaintiff class has introduced admissible evidence, including expert testimony, to show that the case is susceptible to awarding damages on a class-wide basis.”

Full content: Comcast petition for cert

Related content: Harvard, Not Chicago: Which Antitrust School Drives Recent U.S. Supreme Court Decisions?

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