Opinion ID: 798173
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: General Principles of Law

Text: 18 We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing the record in the light most favorable to the non-movant. Bathke, 64 F.3d at 343. Summary judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and ... the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). To avoid summary judgment, a non-moving party must allege specific facts supported by evidence sufficient to allow a reasonable jury to return a verdict in its favor; a mere scintilla of evidence will not suffice. Rolscreen Co. v. Pella Prods. of St. Louis, Inc., 64 F.3d 1202, 1211 (8th Cir.1995). 19 The Sherman Act prohibits [e]very contract, combination ... or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce. 15 U.S.C. § 1. The Supreme Court has long accepted that Congress did not intend a literal interpretation of that language, and it has read the law as prohibiting only those practices that impose[ ] an unreasonable restraint on competition. Arizona v. Maricopa County Med. Soc'y, 457 U.S. 332, 342-43, 102 S.Ct. 2466, 73 L.Ed.2d 48 (1982). The burden of proving the unreasonableness of a restraint lies with the plaintiff. United States v. Arnold, Schwinn & Co., 388 U.S. 365, 374 n. 5, 87 S.Ct. 1856, 18 L.Ed.2d 1249 (1967), overruled on other grounds by Continental T.V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U.S. 36, 58-59, 97 S.Ct. 2549, 53 L.Ed.2d 568 (1977); Paschall v. Kansas City Star Co., 727 F.2d 692, 701-02 (8th Cir.1984); United States v. Empire Gas Corp., 537 F.2d 296, 308 (8th Cir.1976). 20 Some antitrust plaintiffs face a lighter burden than others, depending upon the nature of the restraint at issue. Plaintiffs challenging restraints subject to the per se rule enjoy the lightest burden of proving unreasonableness. Judicial experience has proven certain types of restraints to be so strongly linked with anti-competitive activity, and their economic impact so immediately obvious, that we presume unreasonableness and deem them unlawful restraints of trade per se. State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522 U.S. 3, 10, 118 S.Ct. 275, 139 L.Ed.2d 199 (1997); Nat'l Collegiate Athletic Ass'n v. Bd. of Regents, 468 U.S. 85, 100, 104 S.Ct. 2948, 82 L.Ed.2d 70 (1984). When challenging such naked restraints, the plaintiff meets its burden of proving the unreasonableness of the restraint merely by proving the existence and substance of the restraint itself. See Nat'l Soc. of Prof. Eng'rs v. United States, 435 U.S. 679, 692, 98 S.Ct. 1355, 55 L.Ed.2d 637 (1978) (In the first category are agreements whose nature and necessary effect are so plainly anticompetitive that no elaborate study of the industry is needed to establish their illegality — they are `illegal per se. '). The district court applied this approach to the advertising restrictions at issue here prior to our opinion in Craftsmen I. 21 In a limited number of other cases, the restraint appears pernicious enough on its face to fall within the category of restraints that are unlawful per se, but judicial inexperience with the particular type of restraint warrants a quick look at the relevant market and the defendant's alleged justifications for imposing the restraint. Craftsmen I, 363 F.3d at 773; see also Calif. Dental Ass'n v. FTC, 526 U.S. 756, 769-71, 119 S.Ct. 1604, 143 L.Ed.2d 935 (1999) (acknowledging the existence of the quick look mode of analysis). This amounts to an abbreviated analysis of whether the restraint was unreasonable (though not as abbreviated as an outright condemnation of the restraint as unlawful per se). 22 These two standards are exceptional, however, and their application is reserved for the most patently anticompetitive restraints. Given the danger of applying those truncated modes of analysis too freely, State Oil Co., 522 U.S. at 18, 118 S.Ct. 275, most antitrust claims are analyzed under a `rule of reason,' according to which the finder of fact must decide whether the questioned practice imposes an unreasonable restraint on competition, taking into account a variety of factors, including specific information about the relevant business, its condition before and after the restraint was imposed, and the restraint's history, nature, and effect. Id. at 10, 118 S.Ct. 275. 23 Due to the number of variables involved, including the type of restraint, the nature of the market at issue, and the level of judicial experience with a particular type of restraint in any given case, determining which mode of analysis is appropriate rarely allows for the mechanical application of precedent: 24 [T]here is generally no categorical line to be drawn between restraints that give rise to an intuitively obvious inference of anticompetitive effect and those that call for more detailed treatment. What is required, rather, is an [appropriate inquiry given the facts of] the case, looking to the circumstances, details, and logic of a restraint. The object is to see whether the experience of the market has been so clear, or necessarily will be, that a confident conclusion about the principal tendency of a restriction will follow from a quick (or at least quicker) look, in place of a more sedulous one. 25 Calif. Dental Ass'n, 526 U.S. at 780-81, 119 S.Ct. 1604.