Justice White, delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 2 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 2, makes it an offense for any person to "monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States . . . ." The jury in this case returned a verdict finding that petitioners had monopolized, attempted to monopolize, and/or conspired to monopolize. The District Court entered a judgment ruling
I
Sorbothane is a patented elastic polymer whose shockabsorbing characteristics make it useful in a variety of medical, athletic, and equestrian products. BTR, Inc. (BTR), owns the patent rights to sorbothane, and its wholly owned subsidiaries manufacture the product in the United States and Britain. Hamilton-Kent Manufacturing Company (Hamilton-Kent) and Sorbothane, Inc. (S. I.), were at all relevant times owned by BTR. S. I. was formed in 1982 to take over Hamilton-Kent's sorbothane business.
In 1980, respondents Shirley and Larry McQuillan signed a letter of intent with Hamilton-Kent, which then owned all manufacturing and distribution rights to sorbothane. The letter of intent granted the McQuillans exclusive rights to purchases or bothane for use in equestrian products. Respondents were designing a horseshoe pad using sorbothane.
In 1981, Hamilton-Kent decided to establish five regional distributorships for sorbothane. Respondents were selected to be distributors of all sorbothane products, including medical products and shoe inserts, in the Southwest. Spectrum
In January 1982, Hamilton-Kent shifted responsibility for selling medical products from five regional distributors to a single national distributor. In April 1982, Hamilton-Kent told respondents that it wanted them to relinquish their athletic shoe distributorship as a condition for retaining the right to develop and distribute equestrian products. As of May 1982, BTR had moved the sorbothane business from Hamilton-Kent to S. I. Id., at A6. In May, the marketing manager of S. I. again made clear that respondents had to sell their athletic distributorship to keep their equestrian distribution rights. At a meeting scheduled to discuss the sale of respondents' athletic distributorship to petitioner Leighton, Jr., Leighton, Jr., informed Shirley McQuillan that if she did not come to agreement with him she would be "`looking for work.' " Id., at A6. Respondents refused to sell and continued to distribute athletic shoe inserts.
In the fall of 1982, Leighton, Sr., informed respondents that another concern had been appointed as the national equestrian distributor, and that they were "no longer involved in equestrian products." Id., at A7. In January 1983, S. I. began marketing through a national distributor a sorbothane horseshoe pad allegedly indistinguishable from the one designed by respondents. Ibid. In August 1983, S. I. informed respondents that it would no longer accept their orders. Ibid. Spectrum thereupon became national distributor of sorbothane athletic shoe inserts. Pet. for Cert. 6. Respondents sought to obtain sorbothane from the BTR's British subsidiary, but were informed by that subsidiary that it would not sell sorbothane in the United States. Respondents' business failed. App. to Pet. for Cert. A8.
Respondents sued petitioners seeking damages for alleged violations of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1
The case was tried to a jury, which returned a verdict against one or more of the defendants on each of the 11 alleged violations on which it was to return a verdict. All of the defendants were found to have violated § 2 by, in the words of the verdict sheet, "monopolizing, attempting to monopolize, and/or conspiring to monopolize." App. 410. Petitioners were also found to have violated civil RICO and the California unfair practices law, but not § 1 of the Sherman Act. The jury awarded $1,743,000 in compensatory damages on each of the violations found to have occurred.
The decision below, and the Lessig line of decisions on which it relies, conflicts with holdings of courts in other Circuits. Every other Court of Appeals has indicated that proving an attempt to monopolize requires proof of a dangerous probability of monopolization of a relevant market.
II
While § 1 of the Sherman Act forbids contracts or conspiracies in restraint of trade or commerce, § 2 addresses the actions of single firms that monopolize or attempt to monopolize, as well as conspiracies and combinations to monopolize. Section 2 does not define the elements of the offense of attempted monopolization. Nor is there much guidance to be had in the scant legislative history of that provision, which was added late in the legislative process. See 1 E. Kintner, Legislative History of the Federal Antitrust Laws and Related Statutes 23-25 (1978); 3 P. Areeda & D. Turner, Antitrust Law ¶ 617, pp. 39-41 (1978). The legislative history does indicate that much of the interpretation of the necessarily broad principles of the Act was to be left for the courts in particular cases. See, e. g., 21 Cong. Rec. 2460 (1890) (statement of Sen. Sherman). See also 1 Kintner, supra, at 19; 3 Areeda & Turner, supra, ¶ 617, at 40.
This Court first addressed the meaning of attempt to monopolize under § 2 in Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U.S. 375 (1905). The Court's opinion, written by Justice Holmes, contained the following passage:
The Court went on to explain, however, that not every act done with intent to produce an unlawful result constitutes an attempt. "It is a question of proximity and degree." Id., at 402. Swift thus indicated that intent is necessary, but alone is not sufficient, to establish the dangerous probability of success that is the object of § 2's prohibition of attempts.
The Court's decisions since Swift have reflected the view that the plaintiff charging attempted monopolization must prove a dangerous probability of actual monopolization, which has generally required a definition of the relevant market and examination of market power. In Walker Process Equipment, Inc. v. Food Machinery & Chemical Corp., 382 U.S. 172, 177 (1965), we found that enforcement of a fraudulently obtained patent claim could violate the Sherman Act. We stated that, to establish monopolization or attempt to monopolize under § 2 of the Sherman Act, it would
Similarly, this Court reaffirmed in Copperweld Corp. v. Independence Tube Corp., 467 U.S. 752 (1984), that "Congress authorized Sherman Act scrutiny of single firms only when they pose a danger of monopolization. Judging unilateral conduct in this manner reduces the risk that the antitrust laws will dampen the competitive zeal of a single aggressive entrepreneur." Id., at 768. Thus, the conduct of a single firm, governed by § 2, "is unlawful only when it threatens actual monopolization." Id., at 767. See also Lorain Journal Co. v. United States, 342 U.S. 143, 154 (1951); United States v. Griffith, 334 U.S. 100, 105-106 (1948); American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 328 U.S. 781, 785 (1946).
The Courts of Appeals other than the Ninth Circuit have followed this approach. Consistent with our cases, it is generally required that to demonstrate attempted monopolization a plaintiff must prove (1) that the defendant has engaged in predatory or anticompetitive conduct with (2) a specific intent to monopolize and (3) a dangerous probability of achieving monopoly power. See 3 Areeda & Turner, supra, ¶ 820, at 312. In order to determine whether there is a dangerous probability of monopolization, courts have found it necessary to consider the relevant market and the defendant's ability to lessen or destroy competition in that market.
The Lessig opinion claimed support from the language of § 2, which prohibits attempts to monopolize "any part" of commerce, and therefore forbids attempts to monopolize any appreciable segment of interstate sales of the relevant product. See United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 332 U.S. 218, 226 (1947). The "any part" clause, however, applies to charges of monopolization as well as to attempts to monopolize, and it is beyond doubt that the former requires proof of market power in a relevant market. United States v. Grinnell Corp., 384 U.S. 563, 570-571 (1966); United States v. E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 351 U.S. 377, 404 (1956).
In support of its determination that an inference of dangerous probability was permissible from a showing of intent, the Lessig opinion cited, and added emphasis to, this Court's reference in its opinion in Swift to "`intent and the consequent dangerous probability.' " 327 F. 2d, at 474, n. 46, quoting 196 U. S., at 396. But any question whether dangerous
The Lessig court also relied on a footnote in Du Pont & Co. , supra, at 395, n. 23, for the proposition that when the charge is attempt to monopolize, the relevant market is "not in issue." That footnote, which appeared in analysis of the relevant market issue in Du Pont, rejected the Government's reliance on several cases, noting that "the scope of the market was not in issue" in Story Parchment Co. v. Paterson Parchment Paper Co., 282 U.S. 555 (1931). That reference merely reflected the fact that, in Story Parchment, which was not an attempt to monopolize case, the parties did not challenge the definition of the market adopted by the lower courts. Nor was Du Pont itself concerned with the issue in this case.
It is also our view that Lessig and later Ninth Circuit decisions refining and applying it are inconsistent with the policy of the Sherman Act. The purpose of the Act is not to protect businesses from the working of the market; it is to protect the public from the failure of the market. The law directs itself not against conduct which is competitive, even severely so, but against conduct which unfairly tends to destroy competition itself. It does so not out of solicitude for private concerns but out of concern for the public interest. See, e. g., Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U.S. 477, 488 (1977); Cargill, Inc. v. Monfort of Colorado, Inc., 479 U.S. 104, 116-117 (1986); Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U.S. 294, 320 (1962). Thus, this Court and other courts have been careful to avoid constructions of § 2 which might chill competition, rather than foster it. It is sometimes
III
We hold that petitioners may not be liable for attempted monopolization under § 2 of the Sherman Act absent proof of a dangerous probability that they would monopolize a particular market and specific intent to monopolize. In this case, the trial instructions allowed the jury to infer specific intent and dangerous probability of success from the defendants' predatory conduct, without any proof of the relevant market or of a realistic probability that the defendants could achieve monopoly power in that market. In this respect, the instructions misconstrued § 2, as did the Court of Appeals in affirming the judgment of the District Court. Since the affirmance of the § 2 judgment against petitioners rested solely on the legally erroneous conclusion that petitioners had attempted to monopolize in violation of § 2 and since the jury's verdict did not negate the possibility that the § 2 verdict rested on the attempt to monopolize ground alone, the judgment
So ordered.
FootNotes
"In order to win on the claim of attempted monopoly, the Plaintiff must prove each of the following elements by a preponderance of the evidence:
first, that the Defendants had a specific intent to achieve monopoly power in the relevant market; second, that the Defendants engaged in exclusionary or restrictive conduct in furtherance of its specific intent; third, that there was a dangerous probability that Defendants could sooner or later achieve [their] goal of monopoly power in the relevant market; fourth, that the Defendants' conduct occurred in or affected interstate commerce; and, fifth, that the Plaintiff was injured in the business or property by the Defendants' exclusionary or restrictive conduct.
. . . . .
"If the Plaintiff has shown that the Defendant engaged in predatory conduct, you may infer from that evidence the specific intent and the dangerous probability element of the offense without any proof of the relevant market or the Defendants' marketing [sic] power." Id., at 251-252. See also App. to Pet. for Cert. A16, A20.
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