Task: sc_lcdisposition

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the treatment the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed accorded the decision of the court it reviewed, that is, whether the court below the Supreme Court (typically a federal court of appeals or a state supreme court) affirmed, reversed, remanded, denied or dismissed the decision of the court it reviewed (typically a trial court). Adhere to the language used in the "holding" in the summary of the case on the title page or prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. Exceptions to the literal language are the following: where the Court overrules the lower court, treat this a petition or motion granted; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing refuses to enforce or enjoins the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as reversed; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing enforces the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as affirmed; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing sets aside the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as vacated; if the decision is set aside and remanded, treat it as vacated and remanded.

Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court (Part I), together with an opinion (Parts II and III), in which Mr. Justice Marshall, Mr. Justice Powell, and Mr. Justice Stevens joined.
Parker v. Brown, 317 U. S. 341 (1943), held that the federal antitrust laws do not prohibit a State “as sovereign” from imposing certain anticompetitive restraints “as an act of government.” The question in this case is the extent to which the antitrust laws prohibit a State’s cities from imposing such anticompetitive restraints.
Petitioner cities are organized under the laws of the State of Louisiana, which grant them power to own and operate electric utility systems both within and beyond their city limits. Petitioners brought this action in the District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, alleging that, among others, Louisiana Power & Light Co. (LP&L), an investor-owned electric service utility with which petitioners compete in the areas beyond their city limits, committed various antitrust offenses which injured petitioners in the operation of their electric utility systems. LP&L counterclaimed, seeking damages and injunctive relief for various antitrust offenses which petitioners had allegedly committed and which injured it in its business and property.
Petitioners moved to dismiss the counterclaim on the ground that, as cities and subdivisions of the State of Louisiana, the “state action” doctrine of Parker v. Brown, rendered federal antitrust laws inapplicable to them. The District Court granted the motion, holding that the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Saenz v. University Interscholastic League, 487 F. 2d 1026 (1973), required dismissal, notwithstanding that “[t]hese plaintiff cities are engaging in what is clearly a business activity... in which a profit is realized,” and “for this reason... this court is reluctant to hold that the antitrust laws do not apply to any state activity.” App. 47 (emphasis in original). The District Court in this case read Saenz to interpret the “state action” exemption as requiring the “holding that purely state government activities are not subject to the requirements of the antitrust laws of the United States,” App. 48, thereby making petitioners’ status as cities determinative against maintenance of antitrust suits against them. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded for further proceedings. 532 F. 2d 431 (1976). The Court of Appeals noted that the District Court had acted before this Court’s decision in Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar, 421 U. S. 773 (1975), and held that “taken together” Parker v. Brown and Goldfarb “require the following analysis”:
“A subordinate state governmental body is not ipso facto exempt from the operation of the antitrust laws. Rather, a district court must ask whether the state legislature contemplated a certain type of anticompetitive restraint. In our opinion, though, it is not necessary to point to an express statutory mandate for each act which is alleged to violate the antitrust laws. It will suffice if the challenged activity was clearly within the legislative intent. Thus, a trial judge may ascertain, from the authority given a governmental entity to operate in a particular area, that the legislature contemplated the kind of action complained of. On the other hand, as in Goldfarb, the connection between a legislative grant of power and the subordinate entity’s asserted use of that power may be too tenuous to permit the conclusion that the entity’s intended scope of activity encompassed such conduct. Whether a governmental body’s actions are comprehended within the powers granted to it by the legislature is, of course, a determination which can be made only under the specific facts in each case. A district judge’s inquiry on this point should be broad enough to include all evidence which might show the scope of legislative intent.” 532 F. 2d, at 434-435 (footnotes omitted).
We granted certiorari, 430 U. S. 944 (1977). We affirm.
I
Petitioners’ principal argument is that “since a city is merely a subdivision of a state and only exercises power delegated to it by the state, Parker’s- findings regarding the congressionally intended scope of the Sherman Act apply with equal force to such political subdivisions.” Brief for Petitioners 5. Before addressing this question, however, we shall address the contention implicit in petitioners’ arguments in their brief that, apart from the question of their exemption as agents of the State under the Parker doctrine, Congress never intended to subject local governments to the antitrust laws.
A
The antitrust laws impose liability on and create a cause of action for damages for a “person” or “persons” as defined in the Acts. Since the Court has held that the definition of “person” or “persons” embraces both cities and States, it is understandable that the cities do not argue that they are not “persons” within the meaning of the antitrust laws.
Section 8 of the Sherman Act, ch. 647, 26 Stat. 210, 15 U. S. C. § 7 (1976 ed.), and § 1 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 730, 15 U. S. C. § 12 (1976 ed.), are general definitional sections which define “person” or “persons,” “wherever used in this [Act]... to include corporations and associations existing under or authorized by the laws of either the United States, the laws of any of the Territories, the laws of any State, or the laws of any foreign country.” Section 4 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, 15 U. S. C. § 15 (1976 ed.), provides, in pertinent part, that “[a]ny person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws may sue therefor in any district court..., and shall recover threefold the damages by him sustained____”
Chattanooga Foundry & Pipe Works v. Atlanta, 203 U. S. 390 (1906), held that a municipality is a “person” within the meaning of § 8 of the Sherman Act, the general definitional section, and that the city of Atlanta therefore could maintain a treble-damages action under § 7, the predecessor of § 4 of the Clayton Act, against a supplier from whom the city purchased water pipe which it used to furnish water as a municipal utility service. Some 36 years later, Georgia v. Evans, 316 U. S. 159 (1942), held that the words “any person” in § 7 of the Sherman Act included States. Under that decision, the State of Georgia was permitted to bring an action in its own name charging injury from a combination to fix prices and suppress competition in the market for asphalt which the State purchased annually for use in the construction of public roads. The Court reasoned that “[njothing in the Act, its history, or its policy, could justify so restrictive a construction of the word 'person' in § 7 as to exclude a State.” 316 U. S., at 162.
Although both Chattanooga Foundry and Georgia v. Evans involved the public bodies as plaintiffs, whereas petitioners in the instant case are defendants to a counterclaim, the basis of those decisions plainly precludes a reading of “person” or “persons” to include municipal utility operators that sue as plaintiffs but not to include such municipal operators when sued as defendants. Thus, the conclusion that the antitrust laws are not to be construed as meant by Congress to subject cities to liability under the antitrust laws must rest on the impact of some overriding public policy which negates the construction of coverage, and not upon a reading of “person” or “persons” as not including them.
B
Petitioners suggest several reasons why, in addition to their arguments for exemption as agents of the State under the Parker doctrine, a congressional purpose not to subject cities to the antitrust laws should be inferred. Those arguments, like the Parker exemption itself, necessarily must be considered in light of the presumption against implied exclusions from coverage under the antitrust laws.
(1)
The purposes and intended scope of the Sherman Act have been developed in prior cases and require only brief mention here. Commenting upon the language of the Act in rejecting a claim that the insurance business was excluded from coverage, the Court stated: “Language more comprehensive is difficult to conceive. On its face it shows a carefully studied attempt to bring within the Act every person engaged in business whose activities might restrain or monopolize commercial intercourse among the states.” United States v. SouthEastern Underwriters Assn., 322 U. S. 533, 553 (1944). That and subsequent cases reviewing the legislative history of the Sherman Act have concluded that Congress, exercising the full extent of its constitutional power, sought to establish a regime of competition as the fundamental principle governing commerce in this country.
For this reason, our cases have held that even when Congress by subsequent legislation establishes a regulatory regime over an area of commercial activity, the antitrust laws will not be displaced unless it appears that the antitrust and regulatory provisions are plainly repugnant. E. g., United States v. Philadelphia Nat. Bank, 374 U. S. 321, 350-351, and n. 28 (1963) (collecting cases). The presumption against repeal by implication reflects the understanding that the antitrust laws establish overarching and fundamental policies, a principle which argues with equal force against implied exclusions. See Goldfarb, 421 U. S., at 786-788.
Two policies have been held sufficiently weighty to override the presumption against implied exclusions from coverage of the antitrust laws. In Eastern Railroad Presidents Conf. v. Noerr Motor Freight, Inc., 365 U. S. 127 (1961), the Court held that, regardless of anticompetitive purpose or intent, a concerted effort by persons to influence lawmakers to enact legislation beneficial to themselves or detrimental to competitors was not within the scope of the antitrust laws. Although there is nothing in the language of the statute or its history which would indicate that Congress considered such an exclusion, the impact of two correlative principles was held to require the conclusion that the presumption should not support a finding of coverage. The first is that a contrary construction would impede the open communication between the polity and its lawmakers which is vital to the functioning of a representative democracy. Second, “and of at least equal significance,” is the threat to the constitutionally protected right of petition which a contrary construction would entail. Id., at 137-138. Parker v. Brown identified a second overriding policy, namely that “[i]n a dual system of government in which, under the Constitution, the states are sovereign, save only as Congress may constitutionally subtract from their authority, an unexpressed purpose to nullify a state’s control over its officers and agents is not lightly to be attributed to Congress.” 317 U. S., at 351.
Common to the two implied exclusions was potential conflict with policies of signal importance in our national traditions and governmental structure of federalism. Even then, however, the recognized exclusions have been unavailing to prevent antitrust enforcement which, though implicating those fundamental policies, was not thought severely to impinge upon them. See, e. g., Goldfarb, supra; California Motor Transport Co. v. Trucking Unlimited, 404 U. S. 508 (1972).
Petitioners’ arguments therefore cannot prevail unless they demonstrate that there are countervailing policies which are sufficiently weighty to overcome the presumption. We now turn to a consideration of whether, apart from the question of their exemption as agents of the State under the Parker doctrine, petitioners have made that showing.
(2)
Petitioners argue that their exclusion must be inferred because it would be anomalous to subject municipalities to the criminal and civil liabilities imposed upon violators of the antitrust laws. The short answer is that it has not been regarded as anomalous to require compliance by municipalities with the substantive standards of other federal laws which impose such sanctions upon “persons.” See Union Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 313 U. S. 450 (1941). See generally Ohio v. Helvering, 292 U. S. 360, 370 (1934); California v. United States, 320 U. S. 577 (1944). But those cases do not necessarily require the conclusion that remedies appropriate to redress violations by private corporations would be equally appropriate for municipalities; nor need we decide any question of remedy in this case.
Petitioners next argue that the antitrust laws are intended to protect the public only from abuses of private power and not from actions of municipalities that exist to serve the public weal.
Petitioners’ contention that their goal is not private profit but public service is only partly correct. Every business enterprise, public or private, operates its business in furtherance of its own goals. In the case of a municipally owned utility, that goal is likely to be, broadly speaking, the benefit of its citizens. But the economic choices made by public corporations in the conduct of their business affairs, designed as they are to assure maximum benefits for the community constituency, are not inherently more likely to comport with the broader interests of national economic well-being than are those of private corporations acting in furtherance of the interests of the organization and its shareholders. The allegations of the counterclaim, which for present purposes we accept as true, aptly illustrate the impact which local governments, acting as providers of services, may have on other individuals and business enterprises with which they interrelate as purchasers, suppliers, and sometimes, as here, as competitors.
LP&L alleged that the city of Plaquemine contracted to provide LP&L’s electric customers outside its city limits gas and water service only on condition that the customers purchase electricity from the city and not from LP&L. The effect of such a tie-in is twofold. First, the tying contract might injure former LP&L customers in two ways. The net effect of the tying contract might be to increase the cost of electric service to these customers. Moreover, a municipality conceivably might charge discriminatorily higher rates to such captive customers outside its jurisdiction without a cost-justified basis. Both of these practices would provide maximum benefits for its constituents, while disserving the interests of the affected customers. Second, the practice would necessarily have an impact on the regulated public utility whose service is displaced. The elimination of customers in an established service area would likely reduce revenues, and possibly require abandonment or loss of existing equipment the effect of which would be to reduce its rate base and possibly affect its capital structure. The surviving customers and the investor-owners would bear the brunt of these consequences. The decision to displace existing service, rather than being made on the basis of efficiency in the distribution of services, may be made by the municipality in the interest of realizing maximum benefits to itself without regard to extraterritorial impact and regional efficiency.
The second allegation of LP&L’s counterclaim, is that petitioners conspired with others to engage in sham and frivolous litigation against LP&L before various federal agencies and federal courts for the purpose, and with the effect, of delaying approval and construction of LP&L’s proposed nuclear electric generating plant. It is alleged that this course of conduct was designed to deprive LP&L of needed financing and to impose delay costs, amounting to $180 million, which would effectively block construction of the proposed project. Such activity may benefit the citizens of Plaquemine and Lafayette by eliminating a competitive threat to expansion of the municipal utilities in still undeveloped areas beyond the cities’ territorial limits. But that kind of activity, if truly anticompetitive, may impose enormous unnecessary costs on the potential customers of the nuclear generating facility both within and beyond the cities’ proposed area of expansion. In addition, it may cause significant injury to LP&L, interfering with its ability to provide expanded service.
Another aspect of the public-service argument is that because government is subject to political control, the welfare of its citizens is assured through the political process and that federal antitrust regulation is therefore unnecessary. The argument that consumers dissatisfied with the service provided by the municipal utilities may seek redress through the political process is without merit. While petitioners recognize, as they must, that those consumers living outside the municipality who are forced to take municipal service have no political recourse at the municipal level, they argue nevertheless that the customers may take their complaints to the state legislature. It fairly may be questioned whether the consumers in question or the Florida corporation of which LP&L is a subsidiary have a meaningful chance of influencing the state legislature to outlaw on an ad hoc basis whatever anticompetitive practices petitioners may direct against them from time to time. More fundamentally, however, that argument cuts far too broadly; the same argument may be made regarding anticompetitive activity in which any corporation engages. Mulcted consumers and unfairly displaced competitors may always seek redress through the political process. In enacting the Sherman Act, however, Congress mandated competition as the polestar by which all must be guided in ordering their business affairs. It did not leave this fundamental national policy to the vagaries of the political process, but established a broad policy, to be administered by neutral courts, which would guarantee every enterprise the right to exercise “whatever economic muscle it can muster,” United States v. Topco Associates, 405 U. S. 596, 610 (1972), without regard to the amount of influence it might have with local or state legislatures.
In 1972, there were 62,437 different units of local government in this country. Of this number 23,885 were special districts which had a defined goal or goals for the provision of one or several services, while the remaining 38,552 represented the number of counties, municipalities, and townships, most of which have broad authority for general governance subject to limitations in one way or another imposed by the State. These units may, and do, participate in and affect the economic life of this Nation in a great number and variety of ways. When these bodies act as owners and providers of services, they are fully capable of aggrandizing other economic units with which they interrelate, with the potential of serious distortion of the rational and efficient allocation of resources, and the efficiency of free markets which the regime of competition embodied in the antitrust laws is thought to engender. If municipalities were free to make economic choices counseled solely by their own parochial interests and without regard to their anticompetitive effects, a serious chink in the armor of antitrust protection would be introduced at odds with the comprehensive national policy Congress established.
We conclude that these additional arguments for implying an exclusion for local governments from the antitrust laws must be rejected. We therefore turn to petitioners’ principal argument, that “Parker’s findings regarding the congressionally intended scope of the Sherman Act apply with equal force to such political subdivisions.” Brief for Petitioners 5.
II
Plainly petitioners are in error in arguing that Parker held that all governmental entities, whether state agencies or subdivisions of a State, are, simply by reason of their status as such, exempt from the antitrust laws.
Parker v. Brown involved the California Agricultural Prorate Act enacted by the California Legislature as a program to be enforced “through action of state officials... to restrict competition among the growers '[of raisins] and maintain prices in the distribution of their commodities to packers.” 317 U. S., at 346. The Court held that the program was not prohibited by the federal antitrust laws since “nothing in the language of the Sherman Act or in its history... suggests that its purpose was to restrain a state or its officers or agents from activities directed by its legislature,” id., at 350-351, and “[t]he state... as sovereign, imposed the restraint as an act of government which the Sherman Act did not undertake to prohibit.” Id., at 352.
Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar, 421 U. S. 773 (1975), underscored the significance of Parker’s holding that the determinant of the exemption was whether the challenged action was “an act of government” by the State as “sovereign.” Parker repeatedly emphasized that the anticompetitive effects of California’s prorate program derived from “the state[’s] command”; the State adopted, organized, and enforced the program “in the execution of a governmental policy.” 317 U. S., at 352. Goldfarb, on the other hand, presented the question “whether a minimum-fee schedule for lawyers published by the Fairfax County Bar Association and enforced by the Virginia State Bar,” 421 U. S., at 775, violated the Sherman Act. Exemption was claimed on the ground that the Virginia State Bar was “a state agency by law.” Id., at 790. The Virginia Legislature had empowered the Supreme Court of Virginia to regulate the practice of law and had assigned the State Bar a role in that regulation as an administrative agency of the Virginia Supreme Court. But no Virginia statute referred to lawyers’ fees and the Supreme Court of Virginia had taken no action requiring the use of and adherence to minimum-fee schedules. Goldfarb therefore held that it could not be said that the anticompetitive effects of minimum-fee schedules were directed by the State acting as sovereign. Id., at 791. The State Bar, though acting within its broad powers, had “voluntarily joined in what is essentially a private anti-competitive activity,” id., at 792, and was not executing the mandate of the State. Thus, the actions of the State Bar had failed to meet “[t]he threshold inquiry in determining if an anticompetitive activity is state action of the type the Sherman Act was not meant to proscribe....” Id., at 790. Goldfarb therefore made it clear that, for purposes of the Parker doctrine, not every act of a state agency is that of the State as sovereign.
Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U. S. 350 (1977), involved the actions of a state agency to which the Parker exemption applied. Bates considered the applicability of the antitrust laws to a ban on attorney advertising directly imposed by the Arizona Supreme Court. In holding the antitrust laws inapplicable, Bates noted that “[tjhat court is the ultimate body wielding the State’s power over the practice of law, see Ariz. Const., Art. 3; In re Bailey, 30 Ariz. 407, 248 P. 29 (1926), and, thus, the restraint is 'compelled by direction of the State acting as a sovereign.’ ” Id., at 360, quoting Goldfarb, supra, at 791. We emphasized, moreover, the significance to our conclusion of the fact that the state policy requiring the anticompetitive restraint as part of a comprehensive regulatory system, was one clearly articulated and affirmatively expressed as state policy, and that the State’s policy was actively supervised by the State Supreme Court as the policymaker.
These decisions require rejection of petitioners’ proposition that their status as such automatically affords governmental entities the “state action” exemption. Parker’s limitation of the exemption, as applied by Goldfarb and Bates, to “official action directed by [the] state,” arises from the basis for the “state action” doctrine — that given our “dual system of government in which, under the Constitution, the states are sovereign, save only as Congress may constitutionally subtract from their authority,” 317 U. S., at 351, a congressional purpose to subject to antitrust control the States’ acts of government will not lightly be inferred. To extend that doctrine to municipalities would be inconsistent with that limitation. Cities are not themselves sovereign; they do not receive all the federal deference of the States that create them. See, e. g., Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 667 n. 12 (1974); Lincoln County v. Luning, 133 U. S. 529 (1890) (political subdivisions not protected by Eleventh Amendment from immunity from suit in federal court). Parker’s limitation of the exemption to “official action directed by a state,” 317 U. S., at 351, is consistent with the fact that the States’ subdivisions generally have not been treated as equivalents of the States themselves. In light of the serious economic dislocation which could result if cities were free to place their own parochial interests above the Nation’s economic goals reflected in the antitrust laws, see supra, at 403-408, we are especially unwilling to presume that Congress intended to exclude anticompetitive municipal action from their reach.
On the other hand, the fact that municipalities, simply by their status as such, are not within the Parker doctrine, does not necessarily mean that all of their anticompetitive activities are subject to antitrust restraints. Since “[mjunicipal corporations are instrumentalities of the State for the convenient administration of government within their limits.” Louisiana ex rel. Folsom v. Mayor of New Orleans, 109 U. S. 285, 287 (1883), the actions of municipalities may reflect state policy. We therefore conclude that the Parker doctrine exempts only anticompetitive conduct engaged in as an act of government by the State as sovereign, or, by its subdivisions, pursuant to state policy to displace competition with regulation or monopoly public service. There remains the question whether the Court of Appeals erred in holding that further inquiry should be made to determine whether petitioners’ actions were directed by the State.
Ill
The petitioners and our Brother Stewart’s dissent focus their arguments upon the fact that municipalities may exercise the sovereign power of the State, concluding from this that any actions which municipalities take necessarily reflect state policy and must therefore fall within the Parker doctrine. But, the fact that the governmental bodies sued are cities, with substantially less than statewide jurisdiction, has significance. When cities, each of the same status under state law, are equally free to approach a policy decision in their own way, the anticompetitive restraints adopted as policy by any one of them, may express its own preference, rather than that of the State. Therefore, in the absence of evidence that the State authorized or directed a given municipality to act as it did, the actions of a particular city hardly can be found to be pursuant to “the state [’s] command,” or to be restraints that “the state... as sovereign” imposed. 317 U. S., at 352. The most that could be said is that state policy may be neutral. To permit municipalities to be shielded from the antitrust laws in such circumstances would impair the goals Congress sought to achieve by those laws, see supra, at 403-408, without furthering the policy underlying the Parker “exemption.” This does not mean, however, that a political subdivision necessarily must be able to point to a specific, detailed legislative authorization before it properly may assert a Parker defense to an antitrust suit. While a subordinate governmental unit’s claim to Parker immunity is not as readily established as the same claim by a state government sued as such, we agree with the Court of Appeals that an adequate state mandate for anticompetitive activities of cities and other subordinate governmental units exists when it is found “from the authority given a governmental entity to operate in a particular area, that the legislature contemplated the kind of action complained of.” 532 F. 2d, at 434.
The Parker doctrine, so understood, preserves to the States their freedom under our dual system of federalism to use their municipalities to administer state regulatory policies free of the inhibitions of the federal antitrust laws without at the same time permitting purely parochial interests to disrupt the Nation’s free-market goals.
Our Brother Stewart’s dissent argues that the result we reach will “greatly... impair the ability of a State to delegate governmental power broadly to its municipalities.” Post, at 438 (footnote omitted). That, with respect, is simply hyperbole. Our decision will render a State no less able to allocate governmental power between itself and its political subdivisions. It means only that when the State itself has not directed or authorized an anticompetitive practice, the State’s subdivisions in exercising their delegated power must obey the antitrust laws. The dissent notwithstanding, it is far too late to argue that a State’s desire to insulate anticompetitive practices not imposed by it as an act of government falls within the Parker doctrine. Schwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Distillers Corp., 341 U. S. 384 (1951). Moreover, by characterizing the Parker exemption as fully applicable to local governmental units simply by virtue of their status as such, the approach taken by the dissent would hold anticompetitive municipal action free from federal antitrust enforcement even when state statutes specifically provide that municipalities shall be subject to the antitrust laws of the United States. See generally La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 33:1334 (G) (West Supp. 1977), quoted in n. 44, supra. That result would be a perversion of federalism.
Today’s decision does not threaten the legitimate exercise of governmental power, nor does it preclude municipal government from providing services on a monopoly basis. Parker and its progeny make clear that a State properly may, as States did in Parker and Bates, direct or authorize its instrumentalities to act in a way which, if it did not reflect state policy, would be inconsistent with the antitrust laws. Compare Bates with Goldfarb. True, even a lawful monopolist may be subject to antitrust restraints when it seeks to extend or exploit its monopoly in a manner not contemplated by its authorization. Cf. Otter Tail Power Co. v. United States, 410 U. S. 366, 377-382 (1973). But assuming that the municipality is authorized to provide a service on a monopoly basis, these limitations on municipal action will not hobble the execution of legitimate governmental programs.
Affirmed.
See La. Const., Art. 6, §§ 2, 7 (A) (effective Jan. 1, 1975); La. Const., Art. XIV, §40 (d) (1921) (effective prior to Jan. 1, 1975); see generally La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 33:621, 33:361, 33:506 (West 1951).
La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 33:1326 (West 1951); §§ 33:4162, 33:4163 (West 1966).
The complaint named as parties defendant Middle-South Utilities, Inc., a Florida corporation of which LP&L is a subsidiary, Central Louisiana Electric Co-., Inc., and Gulf States Utilities, Louisiana and Texas corporations respectively, engaged in the generation, transmission, and sale of electric power at wholesale and retail in Louisiana.
LP&L does not allege that it directly competes with the city of Lafayette, but does allege that the city of Plaquemine imposed tying arrangements which injured it. See Respondent’s Second Amended Counterclaim, App. 33-34; Affidavit of J. M. Wyatt, Senior Vice President of LP&L, id., at 37.
Petitioners’ complaint charged that the defendants conspired to restrain trade and attempted to monopolize and have monopolized the generation, transmission, and distribution of electric power by preventing the construction and operation of competing utility systems, by improperly refusing to wheel power, by foreclosing supplies from markets served by defendants, by engaging in boycotts against petitioners, and by utilizing sham litigation and other improper means to prevent the financing of construction of electric generation facilities beneficial to petitioners.
The counterclaim, as amended, alleged that the petitioners, together with a nonparty electric cooperative, had conspired to engage in sham litigation against LP&L to prevent the financing with the purpose and effect of delaying or preventing the construction of a nuclear electric-generating plant, to eliminate competition within the municipal boundaries by use of covenants in their respective debentures, to exclude competition in certain markets by using long-term supply agreements, and to displace LP&L in certain areas by requiring customers of LP&L to purchase electricity from petitioners as a condition of continued water and gas service.
Saenz was a treble-damages action by a slide-rule manufacturer who alleged a conspiracy between a state agency, the University Interscholastic League (UIL), its director, and a private competitor of Saenz to effect the rejection of Saenz products for use in interscholastic competition among Texas public schools. In Saenz the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of the action against the UIL and its director on the ground that as a state agency and a state official, they were not answerable under the Sherman Act.
The word “exemption” is commonly used by courts as a shorthand expression for Parker’s holding that the Sherman Act was not intended by Congress to prohibit the anticompetitive restraints imposed by California in that case.
In entering its order dismissing the counterclaim, the District Court made an express determination that there was no just reason for delay and expressly directed the entry of judgment for plaintiffs pursuant to Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 54 (b). This action designated the dismissal as a final appealable order. See Liberty Mutual Ins. Co. v. Wetzel, 424 U. S. 737, 742-743 (1976).
The word “person” or “persons” is used repeatedly in the antitrust statutes. For examples, see 15 U. S. C. § 1 (1976 ed.) (“Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a felony...”); 15 U. S. C. § 2 (1976 ed.) (“Every person who shall 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, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony...”); 15 U. S. C. § 3 (1976 ed.) (“Every person [making a contract or engaging in a combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade in any Territory or the District of Columbia] shall be deemed guilty of a felony...”); 15 U. S. C. § 7 (1976 ed.) (defining the word “person” or “persons”); 15 U. S. C. § 8 (1976 ed.) (declaring illegal every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade by persons or corporations engaged in importing articles into the United States, and providing that any person so engaged shall be guilty of a misdemeanor).
Section 8 of the Sherman Act provides in full:
“That the word ‘person/ or ‘persons/ wherever used in this act shall be deemed to include corporations and associations existing under or authorized by the laws of either the United States, the laws of any of the Territories, the laws of any State, or the laws of any foreign country.”
Section 8 has remained unchanged since its enactment in 1890.
Section 1 of the Clayton Act defines the word “person” or “persons” in language identical to that of § 8 of the Sherman Act, and it also has remained unchanged since its enactment in 1914.
Section 4 is quoted in full in n. 13, infra.
Section 7 of the Sherman Act, ch. 647, 26 Stat. 210 (1890) (repealed in 1955), provided in full:
“Any person who shah be injured in his business or property by any other person or corporation by reason of anything forbidden or declared to be unlawful by this act, may sue therefor in any circuit court of the United States in the district in which the defendant resides or is found, without respect to the amount in controversy, and shall recover three fold the damages by him sustained, and the costs of suit, including a reasonable attorney’s fee.”
Section 4 of the Clayton Act provides in full:
“Any person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws may sue therefor in any district court of the United States in the district in which the defendant resides or is found or has an agent, without respect to the amount in controversy, and shall recover threefold the damages by him sustained, and the cost of suit, including a reasonable attorney’s fee.”
Section 4 has remained unchanged since its enactment in 1914. It is made applicable to all of the antitrust statutes by § 1 of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. §12 (1976 ed.).
When Congress wished to exempt municipal service operations from the coverage of the antitrust laws, it has done so without ambiguity. The Act of May 26, 1938, ch. 283, 52 Stat. 446, 15 U. S. C. § 13c (1976 ed.), grants a limited exemption to certain not-for-profit institutions for “purchases of their supplies for their own use” from the provisions of the Clayton Act as amended by the Robinson-Patman Act, 49 Stat

Question: What treatment did the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed accorded the decision of the court it reviewed?
A. stay, petition, or motion granted
B. affirmed
C. reversed
D. reversed and remanded
E. vacated and remanded
F. affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part
G. affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded
H. vacated
I. petition denied or appeal dismissed
J. modify
K. remand
L. unusual disposition
Answer:

Answer: D