Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-534_19m2.pdf
Page Number: 32

Cite as:  574 U. S. ____ (2015) 

9 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

Parker  doctrine  and  is  misdirected  by  subsequent  cases
that  extended  that  doctrine  (in  certain  circumstances)  to
private  entities.    The  Court  requires  the  North  Carolina
Board  to  satisfy  the  two-part  test  set  out  in  California 
Retail Liquor Dealers Assn. v. Midcal Aluminum, Inc., 445 
U. S. 97 (1980), but the party claiming Parker immunity in
that case was not a state agency but a private trade asso-
ciation.  Such  an  entity  is  entitled  to  Parker  immunity, 
Midcal  held,  only  if  the  anticompetitive  conduct  at  issue
was  both  “ ‘clearly  articulated’ ”  and  “ ‘actively  supervised
by  the  State  itself.’ ”  445  U. S.,  at  105.    Those  require-
ments are needed where a State authorizes private parties 
to engage in anticompetitive conduct.  They serve to iden-
tify  those  situations  in  which  conduct  by  private  parties
can be regarded as the conduct of a State.  But when the 
conduct  in  question  is  the  conduct  of  a  state  agency,  no 
such inquiry is required.

This  case  falls  into  the  latter  category,  and  therefore 
Midcal  is  inapposite.    The  North  Carolina  Board  is  not  a 
private trade association.  It is a state agency, created and
empowered  by  the  State  to  regulate  an  industry  affecting
public  health. 
It  would  not  exist  if  the  State  had  not 
created it.  And for purposes of Parker, its membership is
irrelevant;  what  matters  is  that  it  is  part  of  the  govern-
ment of the sovereign State of North Carolina. 

Our decision in Hallie v. Eau Claire, 471 U. S. 34 (1985), 
which  involved  Sherman  Act  claims  against  a  municipal-
ity,  not  a  State  agency,  is  similarly  inapplicable.   In  Hal-
lie,  the  plaintiff  argued  that  the  two-pronged  Midcal  test 
should  be  applied,  but  the  Court  disagreed.    The  Court 
acknowledged  that  municipalities  “are  not  themselves 
sovereign.” 471 U. S., at 38.  But recognizing that a munic-
ipality is “an arm of the State,”  id., at 45, the Court held 
that a municipality should be required to satisfy only the
first  prong  of  the  Midcal  test  (requiring  a  clearly  articu-
lated  state  policy),  471  U. S.,  at  46.    That  municipalities