Notre Dame Law Review Volume 58|Issue 1 Article 1 10-1-1982 Economic Jurisprudence of the Burger Court's Antitrust Policy: The First Thirteen Years E. Thomas Sullivan Follow this and additional works at:http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr Part of theLaw Commons Recommended Citation E. T. Sullivan,Economic Jurisprudence of the Burger Court's Antitrust Policy: The First Thirteen Years, 58Notre Dame L. Rev.1 (1982). Available at:http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr/vol58/iss1/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by NDLScholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Notre Dame Law Review by an authorized administrator of NDLScholarship. For more information, please [email protected]. The Economic Jurisprudence of The Burger Court's Antitrust Policy: The First Thirteen Years. E. Thomas Sullivan* I. Introduction The antitrust jurisprudence of the Burger Court defies crisp cat- egorization. Since Chief Justice Burger was sworn in in 1969, the Court has gradually overhauled most of the Warren Court's substan- tive antitrust precedents. Although the Court's jurisprudential ap- proach has shown signs of judicial restraint, especially in the narrow range of cases chosen for review, the Burger Court's decisionmaking demonstrates a marked break from the earlier Warren Court ap- proach to substantive antitrust doctrines.' Analysis of the Burger Court's contribution to antitrust development after the first thirteen years reveals the sharp contrast with the earlier precedents and judi- cial decisionmaking styles, and portends the direction the Court will forge in future adjudication. This article will survey the Burger Court's decisionmaking process in antitrust cases in light of Warren Court antitrust precedents and established twentieth-century juris- prudential models, and will demonstrate how the present Burger Court approach will shape future antitrust conduct and litigation. In place of the "competition equality" populism of earlier peri- ods, the Burger Court has embraced a neoclassical "competition effi- ciency" paradigm.2 In deciding each case within its own factual context and competitive merits, the present Court is developing a narrow, one-dimensional analytical style that emphasizes economic • Professor of Law, University of Missouri, Columbia. The author wishes to thank the University of Missouri School of Law Foundation for supporting this research, and John Kuhlman, William Fisch, and Alfred Neely for reviewing an earlier draft of this article. The author also acknowledges the research assistance of Nancy Shelledy, Nancy Matteuzzi, Madeline Schwartz, and James Burt in preparing this article. 1 See general4y Baxter, Placingt he Burger Court In HistoricalP erspective, 47 ANTrrRusT L.J. 803 (1978); Posner, The Antitrust Decisions of the Burger Court, 47 ANTrrRUST L.J. 819 (1978); Sullivan, Antitrust, Microeconomics, and Politics: Refections on Some Recent Relationships, 68 CALIF. L. REV. 1 (1980). 2 See Continental T.V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U.S. 36 (1977). Seegeneraly A.M. BICKEL, THE SUPREME COURT AND THE IDEA OF PROGRESS 13-14 (1970); Kurland, The Supreme Court, 1963 Term - Foreword '"Equal in Orngin and Equal in Title to the Legislative and Executive Branches of the Govemment," 78 HARV. L. REv. 143, 145 (1964). THE NOTRE DAME LAW REVIEW [October 1982] efficiency.3 It defines the parameters of analysis according to quanti- tative models of prediction, to the exclusion of other relevant 4 considerations. This article will suggest that the emerging economic jurispru- dential paradigm isolates economic theory from political and social policy considerations. Although the interrelationship between law and economics helps to give antitrust law content and purpose, the Court should not confine the legal process so narrowly. Economic analysis should be only one of many components of the overall analy- sis. Noneconomic concerns in a given case may be as relevant as eco- nomic efficiency.5 Social and historical evidence can enrich and inform the qualitative process of decisionmaking.6 A one-dimensional paradigm lacks the flexibility provided by an open, practical, qualitative approach to developing competitive stan- dards. The result may be that once the "competitive efficiency" pre- cedent is clearly in place, only a "mechanical jurisprudence" will remain.7 To prevent a static theory of antitrust decisionmaking, the Court should balance the competitive interests and determine the competitive merits in each case in the context of political and social policy as well as economic theory. Whatever the Court's jurispruden- tial theory of antitrust interpretation, it must remain flexible to criti- cally reexamine changing industrial behavior within an evolving industrial society. To approach the antitrust process from a solely quantitative deterministic orientation is to deny the needed flex- ibility inherent in the history of antitrust laws.8 The Burger Court has advanced its own analytical style in re- straint issues under section one of the Sherman Act9 and merger 3 While principally employing an economic efficiency paradigm, the Court has not al- ways been consistent or articulate in the evaluative process. Compare Catalano, Inc. v. Target Sales, Inc., 446 U.S. 643 (1980), with Broadcast Music, Inc. v. CBS, 441 U.S. 1 (1979). 4 See, e.g., Broadcast Music, Inc. v. CBS, 441 U.S. 1 (1979); United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 438 U.S. 422 (1978); National Soc'y of Prof. Eng'rs v. United States, 435 U.S. 679 (1978); Continental T.V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U.S. 36 (1977). This article does not attempt an exhaustive review of antitrust law. Rather, it examines antitrust analysis as it has developed under the central provisions of the antitrust laws. 5 See, e.g., Pitofsky, The Political Content of Antitrest, 127 U. PA. L. REV. 1051 (1979); Sullivan, supra note 1. 6 See Adelstein, InstitutionalFunctiona ndE volution in the Cimizal Process, 76 Nw. U.L. REV. 1, 46 (1981). 7 See Pound, Mechanicalj urisprudence, 8 COLUM. L. REV. 605 (1908). See alro Brecken- ridge, Legal Positivism and the Natural Law: The Controversy Between Professor Hart and Professor Fuller, 18 VAND. L. REV. 945, 948 (1965). 8 See E. KINTNER, THE LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE FEDERAL ANTITRUST LAWS AND RELATED STATUTES, PART 1 (1978). 9 See note 3 supra. [Vol. 58:1] ANTITRUST JURISPRUDENCE questions under section seven of the Clayton Act. It has, however, refrained from addressing the predation question under section two of the Sherman Act. The Court must articulate the process and stan- dards by which it will evaluate a section two charge of monopoliza- tion or attempt to monopolize. Essentially, the Court will have to define the minimum conduct threshold level that will trigger and sus- tain a section two complaint against a dominant industry member. Clear judicial guidelines serve to inhibit anticompetitive behavior and enhance the laws' predictability. The failure to establish pre- dictable antitrust guidelines may deter competitively desirable con- duct out of fear of the laws' uncertainty. II. Juristic Theories of Decisionmaking A. Legal Positivism One juristic theory of decisionmaking particularly prevalent in the late nineteenth century but having continuing impact on con- temporary judicial decisionmaking is legal positivism. To legal posi- tivists, the law was an imperative or command from the sovereign that established a positive standard.'0 Legal positivists confined the legal process to merely finding the law, without an understanding or evaluation of the competing social values that interact with the sov- ereign imperatives. The positivist approach stated the law and ap- plied it without reflecting on "socially preferable results."', Nonlegal considerations were not permitted to inform the laws' content or pur- pose. The universal and only influence on the decisionmaking pro- cess was precedent deductively applied,12 allowing precise outcomes to be predicted. B. Flexible Decsfonmaking: Holmes and Pound In sharp contrast to legal positivists, Holmes noted that "[t]he life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience."' 3 Both 10 See generally J. AUSTIN, THE PROVINCE OF JURISPRUDENCE DETERMINED (2d ed. 1861); Kocourek, The Centug ofAnayticJurisprudenceS inceJohn Austin, in LAW: A CENTURY OF PROGRESS, 1835-1935 (1937); Kelsen, The Pure Teogi of Law and AnalyticalJ urisprudence, 55 HARv. L. REV. 44 (1941). 11 See W. FRIEDMANN, LEGAL THEORY (3d ed. 1953); J. AUSTIN, supra note 10, at 118-90; Breckenridge, supra note 7, at 948; Hart, Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals, 71 HARv. L. REV. 593,593-99 (1958); Pound, Law in Books andLaw in Action, 44 AM. L. REV. 12, 35-36 (1910). 12 See generally Pound, supra note 11. 13 O.W. HOLMES, THE COMMON LAw (1881). But see Adler, Legal Certainy, 31 COLUM. L. REV. 91, 107 & n.27 (1931). THE NOTRE DAME LAW REVIEW [October 1982] Holmes and Pound faulted positivism for its obsession with analyti- cal logic and consistency and its refusal to invoke value-oriented poli- cies, interests and experiences.14 For Holmes, the legal processt5 evoked forces beyond a jurisprudence that statically denied that law implicates and is implicated by other social institutions. Holmes re- jected the notion that law was or should be merely an imperative, and argued forcibly that an informed and reasoned decisionmaking process must include qualitative predictions and judgments based on an open-ended inquiry including historical, social, and economic consideration .16 Judicial decisionmaking was to embrace a rational and informed process whereby competing interdisciplinary values could be weighed and determined in their proper context. Pound also recognized that legal positivism, though efficient and predictable, too rigidly confined the decisionmaking process.17 Pound observed: It [legal positivism] confined the judge, when questions of law were in issue, to the purely mechanical task of counting and of determin- ing the numerical preponderance of authority. Principles were no longer resorted to in order to make rules to fit cases. The rules were at hand in a fixed and final form, and cases were to be fitted to the rules. The classical jurisprudence of principles had developed, by the very weight of its authority, a jurisprudence of rules; and it is in the nature of rules to operate mechanically.18 For Pound, it would have been enough for a court to determine rules which would control the operative facts of a given relationship with- out announcing a universally applicable principle.'9 Pound believed that the governing rules should reflect a broad perspective, including law's relationship to other contemporary social forces.20 14 See generaly R. POUND, MY PHILOSOPHY OF LAW 250-62 (1941); Pound, 4 Survq of Social Interests, 57 HARV. L. REv. 1, 1-10, 12-39 (1943). Pound urged that because law is "a means toward an end, it must be judged by the results is achieves. . ., not by the beauty of its logical processes or the strictness with which its rules proceed from the dogmas it takes for its foundation." Pound, supra note 7, at 605. 15 See B. CARDOZO, THE NATURE OF THE JUDICIAL PROCESS 112-14 (1921). 16 O.W. HOLMES, Law in Science and Science in Law, in COLLECTED LEGAL PAPERS 210, 225 (1920). 17 Pound, supra note 7, at 607-08. 18 Pound, supra note 7, at 607. See also Pound, The Teoy ofjudiialD ecirion (pts. 1-3), 36 HARv. L. REv. 641, 802, 940 (1923). 19 Pound, supra note 7, at 622 n.69. See also Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905) (Holmes, J., dissenting) (rejecting the announcement of a new universal principle which thereafter would be applied in the decision of the case). 20 G.E. WHITE, PATTERNS OF AMERICAN LEGAL THOUGHT 67 (1978); Pound, Do We Needa Philosophy ofLaw?, 5 COLUM. L. REv. 339, 339-51 (1905); Pound, supra note 11, at 12, 35-36. [Vol. 58:1] ANTITRUST JURISPRUDENCE Pound's theory of juristic decisionmaking focused on freeing the process and context of law from predetermined conceptions. The decisionmaking process had to be flexible enough to accommodate changing social forces, conditions, and the practicalities of each case. The legal process could not stand immune while other social forces affected it or were affected by it.21 Pound's jurisprudential methodology of rationally and systemat- ically interacting law with other social science disciplines, while cer- tainly not universally accepted, was widely utilized and expanded. One product of this development has been emphasis on empirical evidence and quantitative prediction and verification. C. Realism Not long after Pound expanded on his model of the decisional process, another group of writers, who shared Pound's interest in the utility of scientific empiricism, advanced a "realist jurisprudence. '22 Realism, though advanced by many spokesmen who often dis- agreed,23 rejected the positivists' syllogistic approach and rather em- phasized more fact inquiry, including both facts in the instant case and external facts that influenced or should have influenced the ulti- mate outcome.24 For the realist, the law was the decisional process itself, not the rules or principles that, according to the positivists, shaped and determined the law.25 That decisional process was influ- enced, the realists maintained, largely by intuitive and impressionis- tic notions of the deciding judge.26 21 Pound, The Scope andPurposeo fSociologicaljurisrudence( pts. 1-2), 24 HARV. L. Rav. 591 (1911), 25 HARV. L. REV. 489 (1912). 22 See, e.g., J. FRANK, LAW AND THE MODERN MIND (1930); W. FRIEDMANN, LEGAL THEORY 339 (5th ed. 1967); K. LLEWELLYN, THE BRAMBLE BUSH (1930); E. PATrERSON, JURISPRUDENCE: MEN AND IDEAS OF LAW 527 (1953); Dias, The Value ofa Value-Study of Law, 28 MODERN L. REV. 397, 400-01 (1965); Frank, Are Judges Human?, 80 U. PA. L. REV. 17 (1931); Llewellyn, Some Realism About Realism-Responding to Dean Pound, 44 HARV. L. REV. 1222 (193 1)[ hereinafter cited as Llewellyn, Some Realism About Realism]; Llewellyn, A Realistic Jurisprudence-TheN ext Step, 30 COLUM. L. REV. 431 (1930)[hereinafter cited as Llewellyn, A RealisticJ urisprudence]; Yntema, American Legal Realism in Retrospect, 14 VAND. L. REV. 317, 322-23 (1960); Stone, Book Review, 75 HARV. L. REV. 1240, 1249-51 (1962) (reviewing R. POUND, JURISPRUDENCE (1959)). 23 Llewellyn, Some Realism About Realism, supra note 22, at 1229-35. 24 Clark, Methods of Legal Refonn, 36 W. VA. L.Q. 106 (1929); Clark, Present Status ofJudi- cial Statistics, 14 J. AM. JUD. Soc. 84 (1930); Gilmore, Legal Realism: Its Cause and Cure, 70 YALE LJ.1 037 (1961). 25 Jones, Law and Aorality in the Perspective of Legal Realism, 61 COLUM. L. REV. 799, 800- 02 (1961). 26 See, e.g., J. FRANK, LAW AND THE MODERN MIND 100-1 (1930); G.E. WHITE, supra note 20, at 116; Frank, Are Judges Human?, 80 U. PA. L. REV. 17 (1931); Hutcheson, The THE NOTRE DAME LAW REVIEW [October 1982] Llewellyn and Frank, the leading proponents of realism, argued that the decisional process should embrace an empirical or behav- ioral science approach.27 Through this approach, judging could di- vorce, or at least attempt to divorce, itself from the intuitive prejudices of the individual decisionmaker. Through scientific evalu- ation, the realist hoped to advance a greater "awareness of the rela- tionship between rules. . policy" and facts.28 Realists viewed "law as an instrument for social action in a society constantly in flux."'29 Since society was not static, its legal process could not remain affixed to a deductive methodology based on an "a priori conception. 30 Legal realism attempted, as did Pound's sociological jurispru- dence, to correct the one-dimensional normative or positivist ap- proach of earlier jurists3I by interjecting social change into the decisionmaking framework.32 "Extra-legal" factors33 implicated other social science disciplines and institutions in the decisional pro- cess. Both schools of judicial decisionmaking believed that the legal process must be able to respond to social change and changing val- ues. They differed, however, on the philosophical direction of deci- sionmaking. Both schools shared the idea that qualitative factors should aid in resolving conflicting values and interests, though the Judgment Intuitive: The Function of the "Hunch" inJudicz;alDeciion, 14 CORNELL L.Q. 274 (1929); Moore, Rational Basis ofLegal Institutions, 23 COLUM. L. REv. 609 (1923); Yntema, The Horn- book Method and the Conf'&t of Laws, 37 YALE L.J. 468, 480 (1927). 27 See Llewellyn, A RealisticJurisrudence,s upra note 22, at 446 n. 12. 28 McDougal, Fuller v. The American Legal Realists: An Intervention, 50 YALE L.J. 827, 834- 35 (1941) [hereinafter cited as McDougal, An Intervention]; Rostow, American Legal Realism and the Sense ofthe Profession, 34 ROCKY MT. L. REV. 123, 131-133 (1962). Professor McDougal commented: More clearly than any of their critics, the realists have appreciated that legal rules are but the normative declarations of particular individuals, conditioned by their own peculiar cultural milieu, and not truths revealed from on high. Most of their writing has, in fact, been for the avowed purpose of freeing people from the emotional compulsion of antiquated legal doctrine and so enabling them better to pursue their hearts' desires. Not bothering to explain how judges can legislate, it is they who have insisted that judges do and must legislate, that is, make a policy decision, in every case. The major tenet of the "functional approach," which they have so vigorously espoused, is that the law is instrumental only, a means to an end, and is to be appraised only in the light of the ends it achieves. McDougal, An Intervention, supra, at 834-35 (emphasis in original). 29 Rostow, supra note 28; see Llewellyn, Some Realism About Realism, supra note 22, at 1236. 30 See Pound, supra note 7, at 608. 31 E. BODENHEIMER, JURISPRUDENCE 155 (1962). 32 Llewellyn, Some Realism About Realism,supra note 22, at 1236-37; Yntema, sura note 22, at 329. 33 Fuller, American Legal Realism, 82 U. PA. L. REv. 429, 434-45 (1934). See Llewellyn, Some Realism About Realism, supra note 22, at 1253-54. [Vol. 58:1] ANTITRUST JURISPRUDENCE realist "preferred experimentation and empiricism to theorizing. '34 D. Anti-Realist Criticims By the late 1930's, reaction to the realist jurisprudence was sub- stantial.35 Many critics faulted the realists' devotion to and reliance on quantitative theories and "questionable empirical findings,136 which center on exacting statistical investigations and mathematical models.37 Critics observed that realism failed to address adequately the proper boundaries that restrain the decisional process, and feared that judicial self-indulgence and excesses would remain unchecked if no constraints were placed on the judicial process.38 Anti-realists called for "reasoned elaboration"39 within each judicial opinion to determine whether judicial conclusions reasonably weighed the rele- vant values and interests within an accepted framework of rules and principles.4° Wechsler's "neutral principles"41 seemed to embody many of the post-realist criticisms since the 1950's. The decisional process, Wechsler asserted, had been reduced to an idiosyncratic methodol- ogy wherein each decisionmaker achieved an ad hoc result without benefit of "neutral principles" that would guide the judicial pro- cess.42 According to Wechsler, a judicial result was "unprincipled" unless it rested on analytical reasons supported by widely held be- 34 G.E. WHrrE,s upra note 20, at 131. See generaly Adler, supra note 13; Pound, The Call for a RealistJurisprudence,4 4 HARV. L. REv. 697 (1931). 35 G.E. WHITE, supra note 20, at 139. 36 Adler, supra note 13, at 92. 37 See Pound, supra note 34. But see Llewellyn, Some Realism About Realism, supra note 22, at 1234 n.35. Llewellyn cites Cook as advocating a scientific approach for decisionmaking and cites Oliphant as advocating an objective method for decisionmaking. See W.W. COOK, SCIENTIFIC METHOD AND THE LAW (1927); Oliphant, A Return to Stare Decirir, 14 A.B.A.J. 71 (1928). In later years, leading exponents of realism attempted to espouse the importance of empiricism in the legal process. J. FRANK, supra note 26, at xvii; Llewellyn, On Reading and Using the Nvewer Jurisprudence, 40 COLUM. L. REV. 581, 603 (1940). But Vf. Llewellyn, Some Realism About Realism, supra note 22, at 1229-30. 38 See generaloy H.M. HART &A. SACKS, THE LEGAL PROCESS (tent. ed. 1958); Bickel & Wellington, Legislative Purposea nd theJudicialProcess:T he Lincoln Mills Case, 71 HARV. L. REV. 1 (1957); Fuller, Reason and iat in Case Law, 59 HARv. L. REv. 376 (1946); Hart, The Supreme Court, 1958 Term--Foreword: The Time Chart ofjstices, 73 HARv. L. REV. 84 (1959); Jaffe, The Supreme Court, 1950 Ten--Foreword, 65 HARv. L. REV. 107 (1951); Sacks, The Supreme Court, 1953 Tem---Foreword, 68 HARV. L. REV. 96 (1954); Wechsler, Toward NeutralP rinciples of Con- stitutionalL aw, 73 HARv. L. REv. 1 (1959). 39 See, e.g., H.M. HART & A. SACKS, supra note 38, at 161; White, The Evolution of Reasoned Elaboration:J urisprudentialC riticism and Social Change, 59 VA. L. REV. 279 (1973). 40 See note 38 supra. 41 Wechsler, supra note 38, at 1. 42 Id at 21. THE NOTRE DAME LAW REVIEW [October 1982] liefs. Decisions resting on intuitive predictions and convictions were considered erroneous. The "tightly guided process"43 of decision- making based on "reasoned elaboration" and "neutral principles" re- quired, in essence, that the jurist set forth clearly each step of the analytical process by announcing and balancing the competing and, perhaps, conflicting social policies and values present in the case. This was to be accomplished by stating unequivocally any assump- tions or prejudgments and by reaching a decision only if it rested on a generally accepted consensus with regard to the ultimate values and policies involved.44 Wechsler's jurisprudential approach restrained policy develop- ment and judicial prerogatives. Unless a "principled, reasoned anal- ysis" supported the result obtained, judicial restraint became an imperative. No decision regarding policies or values could be ren- dered absent prior public consensus or precedent. A form of mechan- ical jurisprudence had returned, and judicial abstention was thereby institutionalized. Activism was enjoined, because the law's decisional process could no longer serve as a means for achieving social ends. Although the antirealist critique was directed at an activist style of constitutional interpretation rather than legislative interpretation, analogy to the early jurisprudential models and criticism aids in un- derstanding the antitrust decisional process. The open-endedness of the antitrust laws has encouraged a multifaceted weighing analysis similar to constitutional decisionmaking, and the same analytical criticisms apply. Courts must decide whether to interpret the open- ended antitrust laws on a case-by-case, multiple factor weighing ba- sis, or whether to develop a firm set of rules to fill in details omitted by the legislative process. Ultimately, the answer may be dictated by whether the courts' approach is faithful to the broad legislative policy. III. The Competition Model A. From Equality to Efjtieny One of the legacies of the Warren Court's antitrust jurispru- dence was its split jurisprudential personality. The Court refused to be bound by strict logic and rigid precedent,45 and freely legislated 43 Griswold, Foreward Of Time and Atitudes-ProfessorH art andJudgeA rnold, 74 HARV. L. REV. 81, 92 (1960). 44 White, supra note 39, at 286. 45 Bloustein, Logic and Legal Realism." The Realist as a FrtratedI dealist, 50 CORNELL L.Q. 24, 26-31 (1964). [Vol. 58:1] ANTITRUST JURISPRUDENCE its own concepts of social policy within the open-ended antitrust stat- utes.46 The Court, however, was not antidoctrinal or 47 anticonceptual. The Warren Court exhibited a realist enthusiam for empirical economic data concerning industrial organization and how organiza- tional structure could predict behavior. The Court also expressed antirealist doctrine, particularly in its wide application of per se ille- gality to thereby narrowly define the parameters of antitrust analy- sis.48 The conclusive presumption of illegality explicit in the per se approach rested on the intuitive policy conclusions and theoretical postulates that certain conduct was inherently and perniciously an- ticompetitive. By classifying certain conductfper se illegal, the Court disavowed a jurisprudence that balanced competing interests and policies.49 Application of absolute rules foreclosed subsequent analysis. The focus of the decisional process under the Burger Court is on a positive economic analysis. However, unlike the Warren Court's structural perspective, the present Court's analytical inquiry is di- rected to an economic behavioral analysis centering on efficiency objectives--whether the challenged conduct in the long run will fa- cilitate market competition through increased efficiency.50 The Court's emphasis on relative efficiency and competition foreshadows a return to a rigid, quantitative economic approach as the predictor of behavior. Although qualitative factors such as policy, interest and experi- ence are less well defined than quantifiable data, they nevertheless may aid the decisionmaker in reconciling the interests sought to be protected by the antitrust laws. Courts should weigh the sometimes conflicting interests to afford the analytical flexibility needed in a dynamic and pluralistic economy. Although this balancing analysis 46 See, e.g., Simpson v. Union Oil Co., 377 U.S. 13 (1964). 47 See Gilmore, supra note 24. 48 United States v. Topco Assocs., 405 U.S. 596 (1972); Fortner Enterprises, Inc. v. United States Steel Corp., 394 U.S. 495 (1969); Brulotte v. Thys Co., 379 U.S. 29 (1964); Klor's, Inc. v. Broadway-Hale Stores, 359 U.S. 207 (1959); Northern Pac. Ry. v. United States, 356 U.S. 1 (1958); Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. John D. Park & Sons Co., 220 U.S. 373 (1911). 49 The Court's general unwillingness to balance competing interests was revealed in United States v. Topco Assocs., Inc., 405 U.S. 596 (1972), in which the Court stated that it was ill-equipped to undertake a balancing of competitive effects. Id at 609-10. 50 See, e.g., Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U.S. 330 (1979); Broadcast Music, Inc. v. CBS, 441 U.S. 1 (1979).