Court Opinion

ID: 9428767
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:24:43.224167+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:15.126488
License: Public Domain

Justice Powell,
with whom Justice White and Justice Rehnquist join, dissenting.
The Court today adopts an unprecedented theory of antitrust liability, one applied specifically to a nonprofit, standard-setting association but a theory with undefined boundaries that could encompass a broad spectrum of our country’s nonprofit associations. The theory, based on the agency concept of “apparent authority,” would impose the poten*579tially crippling burden of treble damages. In this case, the Court specifically holds that standard-setting organizations may be held liable for the acts of their agents even though the organization never ratified, authorized, or derived any benefit whatsoever from the fraudulent activity of the agent and even though the agent acted solely for his private employer’s gain. In my view such an expansive rule of strict liability, at least as applied to nonprofit organizations, is inconsistent with the weight of precedent and the intent of Congress, unsupported by the rules of agency law that the Court purports to apply, and irrelevant to the achievement of the goals of the antitrust laws. Accordingly, I dissent.
M
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is a nonprofit, tax-exempt, membership corporation with over 90,000 members. Among its many activities, ASME drafts over 400 codes and standards. These codes have been developed through the voluntary efforts of ASME’s members, and are a valuable public service. The Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code, relevant in this case, is some 18,000 pages in length. In addition to preparing codes and standards, ASME members — through committees — perform the further service of responding to public inquiries concerning interpretation of the codes. Some measure of the extent of this service can be gathered from the 20,000-30,000 inquiries a year received by the organization concerning just the Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code alone. As a result of a fraudulent answer given by an ASME subcommittee chairman to one of these thousands of inquiries, the entire organization has been exposed to potentially crippling liability.1
*580Of course, nonprofit associations are subject to the antitrust laws. The Court has so held on several occasions. See Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar, 421 U. S. 773 (1975).2 Yet the Court also has noted that the antitrust laws need not be applied to professional organizations in precisely the same manner as they are applied to commercial enterprises. In Goldfarb, supra, for example, the Court recognized that “[i]t would be unrealistic to view the practice of professions as interchangeable with other business activities, and automatically to apply to the professions antitrust concepts that originated in other areas.”3 Id., at 788, n. 17. In view of this recognition, one would not have expected the Court to take *581the occasion of this case to promulgate an expansive rule of antitrust liability not heretofore applied by it to a commercial enterprise much less to a nonprofit organization.
Indeed, the Court points to no case in which any court has held the apparent authority theory of liability applicable in an antitrust case. Nor does the Court cite a single decision in which the apparent authority theory of liability has been applied in a case involving treble or punitive damages and an agent who acts without any intention of benefiting the principal.4 In a word, the Court makes new law, largely ignoring existing precedent.
In Mine Workers v. Coronado Coal Co., 259 U. S. 344 (1922), and Coronado Coal Co. v. Mine Workers, 268 U. S. 295 (1925), the Court held that the national union was not liable as principal for the antitrust violations of the local union. The Court was hesitant to impose treble-damages liability on a membership organization in the absence of clear evidence showing ratification or authorization.5 Even in the context *582of commercial enterprises, the Courts of Appeals that have considered the matter appear to reject antitrust liability upon mere apparent authority.6
Moreover, the Court as much as concedes that an apparent authority rule of liability has rarely, if ever, been used to impose punitive damages upon the principal. See ante, at 570, n. 7.7 Rather than contest this well-established rule of *583agency law, the Court argues that treble damages are not punitive or, even if they are, the purposes of the antitrust laws override this basic rule of the law of agency. In fact the Court often has characterized treble-damages liability as punitive: “The very idea of treble damages reveals an intent to punish past, and to deter future, unlawful conduct.” Texas Industries, Inc. v. Radcliff Materials, Inc., 451 U. S. 630, 639 (1981). See P. Areeda & D. Turner, Antitrust Law ¶ 311b (1978) (“whether or not compensatory damages ever punish, treble damages are indisputably punishment”). In the context of a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization it would seem even clearer that treble damages primarily punish and are intended to do so. There is no element of restitution here; ASME has derived no ill-gotten gain from the misdeeds of its disloyal agent.
In short, the Court launches on an uncharted course. I know of no antitrust decision that has imposed treble-damages liability upon a commercial enterprise, let alone a nonprofit organization, solely on an apparent authority theory of liability.8 The antitrust laws have been effectively enforced for over 90 years without the need for such a theory of liability. Indeed, the very facts of this case belie the neces*584sity of simply creating a new theory of liability; the jury found ASME liable not upon a theory of apparent authority but upon the traditional basis of ratification or authorization. The apparent authority rationale was not even argued to the Second Circuit on appeal. The Second Circuit, and now this Court, reach out unnecessarily to embrace a dubious new doctrine. That the Court chooses the case of a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization to announce its new rule is particularly inappropriate. Nor can the Court’s decision be squared with the intent of Congress in enacting the Sherman Act.
r-H HH
This case comes before us as an antitrust suit under the Sherman Act. Our focus should be on the intent of Congress.9 See Texas Industries, Inc. v. Radcliff Materials, Inc., supra, at 639. And that intent emerges clearly from the legislative history:
*585“[The Sherman Act] was enacted in the era of ‘trusts’ and of ‘combinations’ of businesses and of capital organized and directed to control of the market by suppression of competition in the marketing of goods and services, the monopolistic tendency of which had become a matter of public concern. The end sought was the prevention of restraints to free competition in business and commercial transactions which tended to restrict production, raise prices or otherwise control the market to the detriment of purchasers or consumers of goods and services . . . Apex Hosiery Co. v. Leader, 310 U. S. 469, 492-493 (1940).
Senator Sherman twice explained that his bill was directed at anticompetitive business activity and not at voluntary associations. In response to a request that the legislation be more clearly tailored to “these great trusts, these great corporations, these large moneyed institutions,” Senator Sherman answered as follows:
“The bill as reported contains three or four simple propositions which relate only to contracts, combinations, agreements made with a view and designed to carry out a certain purpose .... It does not interfere in the slightest degree with voluntary associations ... to advance the interests of a particular trade or occupation. . . . They are not business combinations. They do not deal with contracts, agreements, etc. They have no connection with them.” 21 Cong. Rec. 2562 (1890).
When Senator Hoar expressed the concern that the bill would prohibit temperance organizations, and proposed an amendment to exclude them from the bill, Senator Sherman spoke reassuringly:
“I have no objection to [this] amendment, but I do not see any reason for putting in temperance societies any more than churches or school-houses or any other kind of *586moral or educational associations that may be organized. Such an association is not in any sense a combination or arrangement made to interfere with interstate commerce.” Id., at 2658.
This legislative history does not indicate that nonprofit associations are exempt from the antitrust laws. See Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar, 421 U. S. 773 (1975). But it does counsel against adopting a new rule of agency law that extends the exposure of such organizations to potentially destructive treble-damages liability.
In addition to the legislative history, it is particularly relevant — in view of the Court’s reliance on the modern law of agency — to consider the accepted law of agency as it existed at the time the Sherman Act was passed.10 It was clear under basic principles then established that charitable organizations were not liable for the torts of their agents.11 *587Whether a nonprofit, tax-exempt, public service association would have been considered a “charity” is not clear, but one would think that it well might have been.12
Moreover, under the laws of agency as known to the Congress that passed the Sherman Act it was far from clear— even in cases involving commercial enterprises — that a principal could be held liable for the deliberate torts of his agent. According to one treatise of the time, “[w]hile ... it is well settled that the principal is liable for the negligent act of his agent, committed in the course of his employment, it has been held in many cases, that he is not liable for the agent’s willful or malicious act.” F. Mechem, Law of Agency §740 (1889) (hereafter Mechem).13 Indeed, the Court acknowl*588edges this much when it notes that in Friedlander v. Texas & Pacific R. Co., 130 U. S. 416 (1889)—decided the year before the Sherman Act was passed — “the Court held that an employer was not liable for the fraud of his agent, when the employer could derive no benefit from the agent’s fraud.” Ante, at 567.14
Finally, no principle of agency law was more firmly established in 1890 — or now for that matter — than that punitive damages are not awarded against a principal for the acts of an agent acting only with apparent authority and without any intention of benefiting the principal. Indeed, this Court *589went further, holding more generally that “ ‘punitive or vindictive damages, or smart money, [are] not to be allowed as against the principal, unless the principal participated in the wrongful act of the agent.’” Lake Shore & M. S. R. Co. v. Prentice, 147 U. S., at 114, quoting Hagan v. Providence & Worcester R. Co., 3 R. I. 88, 91 (1854).15
Although an inquiry into the legislative history and the law of agency is not conclusive, it does cast serious doubt on the Court’s choice of this case to promulgate a new rule of antitrust liability. Whatever the merits of an apparent authority rule of liability for commercial enterprises, in the case of a treble-damages action against a nonprofit organization, such a rule is inconsistent with what appears to have been the intent of Congress in enacting the Sherman Act.
*590Ill
The underlying theme of the Court’s opinion seems to be that any rule of agency law that widens the net of antitrust enforcement and liability should be adopted. Yet the Court has never used such a single-minded approach in the past. In United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 438 U. S. 422 (1978), for example, the Court held that intent is a necessary element of a criminal antitrust offense. The Court was unwilling to assume that Congress had intended to create a strict liability crime despite the potential increase in deterrence. Similarly, in Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, 431 U. S. 720 (1977), the Court held that indirect purchasers could not use a “pass-on” theory to recover treble damages from an antitrust violator. The Court rejected the argument that the antitrust laws would be more effective were the class of potential plaintiffs widened. On the contrary, “the antitrust laws will be more effectively enforced by concentrating the full recovery for the overcharge in the direct purchasers rather than by allowing every plaintiff potentially affected by the overcharge to sue.” Id., at 735. Nor would the Court accept a rule that might permit both indirect and direct purchasers to sue for the same overcharge. Such a rule “would create a serious risk of multiple liability for defendants.” Id., at 730. Thus, the Court has adopted a more discerning approach to questions of antitrust liability in the past — an approach that considers the fairness and appropriateness of a rule in addition to its perceived potential for deterrence.
The Court argues that its expanded rule of liability furthers effective antitrust enforcement. One may question whether a rule of liability developed so late in the day and with so little support in precedent can be described as necessary to antitrust enforcement. When one considers further that the jury found ASME liable under traditional principles, the need for an expanded rule becomes even less credible. Nor does the Court explain how its rule of apparent authority serves the purpose of effective antitrust enforcement. The *591primary beneficiary in this case was McDonnell & Miller, the manufacturing company that arranged for the fraudulent ruling by the ASME subcommittee chairman. The sole purpose of the fraud was to disadvantage McDonnell & Miller’s competitor. The focus of Hydrolevel’s attack, however, has been on ASME.16 It is curious reasoning to argue, as the Court does, that a rule that encourages plaintiffs to seek recovery from nonprofit organizations, rather than from the commercial enterprises that benefited from the violation, will facilitate proper antitrust enforcement.17
*592In a more fundamental sense, the Court’s assignment of liability to ASME on a theory of apparent authority simply has no relevance to the furtherance of the purposes of the antitrust laws. ASME is not a competitor. The competition here was between McDonnell & Miller, Inc., and Hydrolevel. Of course, if ASME ratifies the fraudulent act of its agent, as the jury found, liability should attach. But the Court has .devised what amounts to a rule of strict liability for voluntary associations in antitrust cases. Under the Court’s rule ASME would be liable if an ASME building employee pilfered ASME stationery and supplied it to McDonnell & Miller. Similarly, if a private pharmaceutical school — a tax-exempt corporation like ASME — released a study condemning a particular drug, because a competing drug company had suborned the professor who wrote the report, the Court’s rule would subject the school to the full brunt of treble damages.
Section 1 of the Sherman Act requires a contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade. The Court attaches liability in this case on the dubious notion that ASME somehow has “conspired” with McDonnell & Miller. Yet it stretches the concept of vicarious liability beyond its rational limits to conceive of Hardin and James as conspiring on behalf of ASME when they acted solely for the benefit of McDonnell & Miller and against the interests of ASME.18 The Court simply opens new vistas in the law of conspiracy and vicarious liability, as well as in the imposition of the harsh penalty of treble damages.
*593Whatever the application of agency law in its traditional setting, application of the most expansive rules of liability in the context of antitrust treble damages and nonprofit, tax-exempt associations threatens serious injustice and overde-terrence. There is no way in which an association adequately can protect itself from this sort of liability. There is no chain of delegated authority, from stockholders through directors and officers, in the typical voluntary association. The members of these associations exercise a far less structured control than the stockholders and directors of a commercial enterprise. Perhaps ASME will attempt to protect itself by ceasing to respond to inquiries concerning its codes. That hardly would contribute either to antitrust enforcement or to the public welfare. And whereas a commercial enterprise may have the resources to bear a treble-damages award, the same cannot be said of most nonprofit organizations.19
The Court is so zealous to impose treble-damages liability that it ignores a basic purpose of the Sherman Act: the preservation of private action contributing to the public welfare. See United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 438 U. S., *594at 438-443. ASME industry standard-setting can have a significant potential for consumer benefit: for example, its boiler safety information can be expensive if consumers are forced to gain it only by their own experience or by the creation of another bureaucracy. The Court’s policy discussion takes no account of this potential cost. Rather, it appears to be so concerned with imposing liability that it puts at risk much of the beneficial private activity of the voluntary associations of our country.
How far the Court’s holding extends is unclear. The Court emphasizes that ASME is a standard-setting organization. Yet it does not limit its rationale to these particular organizations. One must be concerned whether the new doctrine and the sweep of the Court’s language will be read as exposing the array of nonprofit associations — professional, charitable, educational, and even religious — to a new theory of strict liability in treble damages.

 The District Court entered a judgment against ASME in an amount in excess of $7 million — a sum that would destroy many such organizations. By contrast McDonnell & Miller, Inc., and Hartford Steam Boiler Inspec*580tion and Insurance Co., commercial enterprises owned by International Telephone and Telegraph Corp., and the beneficiaries of the fraudulent conduct in this case, have settled for $725,000 and $75,000 respectively. Curiously, the Court speaks of the “wisdom” of a rule that encourages such an inequitable result. Ante, at 573. The Court correctly notes that the Court of Appeals reversed the damages award against ASME and remanded for a new estimation. Perhaps the final award against ASME will be substantially less than the $7.5 million judgment originally entered. Yet there is no assurance of this.

 Although associations now are viewed as being within the scope of the antitrust laws, to my knowledge this is the first case in which the Court has held explicitly that a nonprofit, tax-exempt association is subject to treble-damages liability. Cf. Areeda, Antitrust Immunity for “State Action” After Lafayette, 95 Harv. L. Rev. 435, 455 (1981) (footnote omitted) (“[Ajntitrust liability does not necessarily call for a damage remedy. . . . The Supreme Court may come to agree that antitrust liability may vary according to the remedies sought”).
ASME refers to itself as a “society.” I use the words “organization” and “association” interchangeably to describe a broad range of nonprofit, membership entities and tax-exempt organizations.

 Goldfarb “properly left to the Court some flexibility in considering how to apply traditional Sherman Act concepts to professions long consigned to self-regulation.” National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U. S. 679, 699 (1978) (Blackmun, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). See id., at 701 (stressing the need for “elbowroom for realistic application of the Sherman Act” to other than commercial enterprises).

 The Court cites to several decisions, ante, at 575, n. 14, in which courts have levied punitive damages upon the principal for the “unauthorized” acts of an agent. It is not clear that any of these decisions holds the principal liable upon the apparent authority of an agent acting without intent to benefit the principal. None of them concerns the antitrust laws. None involves a nonprofit entity.

 “[A] trades-union . . . might be held liable . . . but certainly it must be clearly shown in order to impose such a liability on an association of 450,000 men that what was done was done by their agents in accordance with their fundamental agreement of association.” Coronado Coal Co., 268 U. S., at 304. The Court refused to impose liability on the national union simply because it had the authority to discipline the local. See Mine Workers, 259 U. S., at 395. Moreover, the Court indicated that this was not a case in which a theory of apparent authority might be applied — despite the national union’s power over the local and despite the support of the strike by the president of the national union: “Here it is not a question of contract or of holding out an appearance of authority on which some third person acts.” Ibid. The majority quotes this language, see ante, at 573, n. 12, but misses its point. The Mine Workers Court well could have characterized the case before it as involving an exercise of apparent authority by the local *582union or the national president; it refused to do so. See Truck Drivers’ Local No. 421 v. United States, 128 F. 2d 227, 235 (CA8 1942) (viewing the holding in Mine Workers as rejecting an apparent authority theory of antitrust liability).

 See United States v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 433 F. 2d 174, 204 (CA3 1970); United States v. Cadillac Overall Supply Co., 568 F. 2d 1078, 1090 (CA5 1978); United States v. Hilton Hotels Corp., 467 F. 2d 1000 (CA9 1972). Accord Truck Drivers’ Local No. 421 v. United States, supra, at 235 (union not liable for the antitrust violations of a local division: “To bind the union in a situation such as this, actual and authorized agency was necessary; mere apparent authority would not be sufficient”).
In United States v. Hilton Hotels Corp., supra, for example, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled out liability on apparent authority by requiring that the agent hold a “purpose to benefit the corporation.” Id., at 1006, n. 4. In light of the rule adopted by the Court today, it is ironic that the Court of Appeals in Hilton Hotels considered that its rule of liability was actually a broad one. Although implicitly rejecting a rule of apparent authority, the court held that a corporation could be liable for the acts of its agents “even when done against company orders.” Id., at 1004. The court argued that such an expansive rule of liability was justified in the case before it, involving a commercial enterprise, because the Sherman Act was “primarily concerned with the activities of business entities.” Ibid. A rule promoting corporate liability was supported further by the consideration that antitrust violations “are usually motivated by a desire to enhance profits,” “involve basic policy decisions, and must be implemented over an exténded period of time,” and “if a violation of the Sherman Act occurs, the corporation, and not the individual agents, will have realized the profits from the illegal activity.” Id., at 1006. None of these considerations in support of a broad rule of liability applies to the fraudulent, self-interested conduct of ASME members in this case. Yet the Court adopts a rule of liability far broader than that stated by the Ninth Circuit with such care.

 In Lake Shore & M. S. R. Co. v. Prentice, 147 U. S. 101, 107 (1893), the Court held that “[a] principal. . . cannot be held liable for exemplary or punitive damages, merely by reason of wanton, oppressive or malicious in*583tent on the part of the agent.” In a generally similar context, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that a principal was not subject to double damages under the False Claims Act, 31 U. S. C. § 231, for the fraud of an agent acting without intent to benefit the principal. See United States v. Ridglea State Bank, 357 F. 2d 495, 500 (1966) (“[T]he present action is not primarily one for the recovery of a loss caused by an employee, but is one which, if successful, must result in a recovery wholly out of proportion to actual loss. . . . [T]he case calls for the application of the rule . . . that the knowledge or guilty intent of an agent not acting with a purpose to benefit his employer, will not be imputed to the employer”).

 Hydrolevel argues that Continental Baking Co. v. United States, 281 F. 2d 137, 150-151 (CA6 1960), and United States v. Continental Group, Inc., 603 F. 2d 444, 468, n. 5 (CA3 1979), support an apparent authority theory of liability in antitrust cases. Yet in Continental Baking the court endorsed an instruction that included an “apparent” authority component on the theory that a corporation must “answer for [an agent’s] violations of law which inure to the corporation’s benefit.” There was no such benefit *584in this case. Moreover, in Continental Group the court simply affirmed an apparent authority instruction without comment, in a footnote, in a case presenting many other issues. The agents in that case were clearly acting for the benefit of their corporations, and the court may have considered that the apparent authority instruction, if error, was harmless.
In any event, the comparative paucity of authority on the question of apparent authority liability in antitrust cases simply underscores that the Court today is making new law. It also is doing so needlessly as ASME was neither tried nor found liable on the basis of apparent authority.

 Relying on a novel public policy as to nonprofit associations, the Court makes little effort to ascertain the intent of Congress either through examining the legislative history or the common law then existing. Indeed, the Court implies that the agency law of the 19th century and “Victorian” common law are irrelevant. See ante, at 568-569, n. 6. In seeking to understand the Sherman Act, this Court frequently has found it necessary to “delve” into the history of the common law both “Victorian” and from earlier eras. See Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U. S. 1, 51-62 (1911). The Civil Rights Acts of the 19th century were also the work of a “Victorian” Congress, yet we have looked both to the legislative history and to the common law when interpreting those Acts. See, e. g., Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547 (1967).

 In Texas Industries, Inc. v. Radcliff Materials, Inc., 451 U. S. 630, 644, n. 17 (1981), the Court stated that the rules of common law in effect at the time the Act was passed were relevant to an inquiry into congressional intent: “[I]t is clear that when the Sherman Act was adopted the common law did not provide a right to contribution among tortfeasors participating in proscribed conduct. One permissible, though not mandatory, inference is that Congress relied on courts’ continuing to apply principles in effect at the time of enactment.” The contemporary case law is relevant precisely because “Congress ... did not intend the text of the Sherman Act to delineate the full meaning of the statute or its application in concrete situations. The legislative history makes it perfectly clear that it expected the courts to give shape to the statute’s broad mandate by drawing on common-law tradition.” National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U. S., at 688.

 “Where a corporation or trustees are conducting a charity with funds devoted to that purpose, the charitable organization is not liable for the torts of its agents or servants, as ‘it would be against all law and all equity to take those trust funds, so contributed for a special, charitable purpose, to compensate injuries inflicted or occasioned by the negligence of the agents or servants.’” E. Huffcut, Elements of the Law of Agency § 161, pp. 176-177 (1895).

 In describing the liability of the principal for the torts of the agent, the First Restatement of Agency, published in 1933, cautioned that it did not address “any limitations upon liability because of . . . rules applicable to special classes, such as charitable organizations.” Restatement of Agency 458.

 The complete statement of the rule by Mechem is as follows:
“While ... it is well settled that the principal is liable for the negligent act of his agent, committed in the course of his employment, it has been held in many cases, that he is not liable for the agent’s willful or malicious act. . . .
“The tendency of modern cases, however, is to attach less importance to the intention of the agent and more to the question whether the act was done within the scope of the agent’s employment; and it is believed that the true rule may be said to be that the principal is responsible for the wilful or malicious acts of his agent, if they are done in the course of his employment and within the scope of his authority; but that the principal is not liable for such acts, unless previously expressly authorized, or subsequently ratified, when they are done outside of the course of the agent’s employment, and beyond the scope of his authority, as where the agent steps aside from his employment to gratify some personal animosity, or to give vent to some private feeling of his own” (emphasis added, footnotes omitted).
Although the concept of within “scope of authority” is not always easy to apply, it is beyond rational doubt that in this case the fraudulent activity of Hardin and James, on behalf of McDonnell & Miller, Inc., was not within the scope of any authority of ASME. In addition, some courts have found that “[a] purpose to benefit the corporation is necessary to bring the *588agent’s acts within the scope of his employment.” See United States v. Hilton Hotels Corp., 467 F. 2d, at 1006, n. 4. It is just such a purpose that was lacking in this case. Indeed, the “agents” in this case were not acting simply for their own malicious purposes, they were acting on behalf of another principal with interests inimical to those of ASME. It is far from clear under principles of agency law that Hardin and James are properly described as the “agents” of ASME when they act to serve a different principal and without any intention of benefiting ASME. See Mechem § 67 (“A person may act as agent of two or more principals ... if his duties to each are not such as to require . . . incompatible things”).
The Court suggests that there was a division among the state courts on the question of the principal’s liability for the malicious acts of an agent. See ante, at 568-569, n. 6. But there was no division in the federal courts, the courts charged with enforcement of the Sherman Act. In any event, surely the point is not whether every state court recognized the rule stated by this Court in Friedlander v. Texas & Pacific R. Co., 130 U. S. 416 (1889). Rather, if there was any uncertainty as to the liability of a commercial principal for the torts of an agent acting in the course of employment, how much clearer must it be that a nonprofit, voluntary association would not have been held liable in treble damages for the acts of an agent acting with apparent authority only.

 The Court notes that Friedlander was later overruled by Gleason v. Seaboard Air Line R. Co., 278 U. S. 349 (1929). The relevance of this fact to Congress’ intentions is not clear to me. There is “no federal general common law.” Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64, 78 (1938). There is no federal general law of agency. Rather we are engaged here in an exercise in statutory construction. Cf. 21 Cong. Rec. 3149 (1890) (remarks of Sen. Morgan) (“It is very true that we use common-law terms *589here and common-law definitions in order to define an offense which is in itself comparatively new, but it is not a common-law jurisdiction that we are conferring upon the circuit courts of the United States,” quoted in Texas Industries, Inc. v. Radcliff Materials, Inc., 451 U. S., at 644).

 The Court responds by citing to several state law decisions indicating that in some States a principal might have been held liable in punitive damages for the acts of an agent. See ante, at 575, n. 14. I believe the Court overstates the extent to which 19th-century state courts imposed punitive damages on the principal for the deliberate torts of an agent. See Mechem § 751; cf. Mayo Hotel Co. v. Danciger, 143 Okla. 196, 200, 288 P. 309, 312 (1930) (“There are . . . respectable authorities, some of them recent ones, definitely holding that a corporation cannot be subjected to exemplary damages because of the malicious. . . acts of its agents and servants where such acts are not authorized or afterwards ratified .... Many of the state courts, and a majority of the federal courts, expressly adhere to that doctrine”) (emphasis added). More significantly, the Court does not make clear which, if any, of the state decisions it relies upon held the principal liable for punitive damages upon the apparent authority of an agent acting without any intention of benefiting the principal. I had thought that this was the question before us. And again the Court misses the basic point: If the rule of liabilty adopted by the Court today would have seemed questionable in 1890 even as applied to a commercial enterprise, can there be any basis for believing that Congress intended such an extreme rule of liability to be applied to voluntary, nonprofit associations?

 Damages were awarded against ASME in an amount of $7.5 million. By contrast, McDonnell & Miller settled the suit for less than a million dollars. See n. 1, supra. The majority’s contention that “a plaintiff will prefer to bring a corporate defendant like M&M (ITT) before a jury,” ante, at 574, n. 13, is not borne out by this case. If the Court has some other case in mind, it does not cite to it.

 The Court’s argument that the imposition of treble damages will advance antitrust enforcement has a hollow ring in the context of a membership, nonprofit organization. Organizations of this kind normally function through committees composed — as in this case — of volunteers who are not employees, serve only at infrequent intervals, and are virtually uncontrollable by what usually is a small headquarters staff.
The Court suggests that voluntary organizations can “take steps to reduce the likelihood that antitrust violations like the one that occurred in this case will take place in the future.” Ibid. The Court then refers to “new procedures” adopted by ASME, and criticizes my dissent for refusing “to accept that ASME and other such organizations can react to potential antitrust liability by making their associations less subject to fraudulent manipulation.” Ibid.
It would be enlightening if the Court would explain how such an association can protect itself even from “mere tort” liability, see ante, at 569, n. 6, much less the treble-damages liability imposed in this case, in light of the Court’s adoption of the apparent authority theory of liability. Review procedures well may be helpful to prevent mistakes made in good faith on behalf of an association. But no set of rules and regulations, and no procedures however elaborate, can protect adequately against fraud and disloyalty. In this case, for example, if ASME had required approval by a review committee or even by its governing body before the release of each of the thousands of ruling letters, a member bent on fraud could forge evidence or otherwise circumvent most safeguards. In practice, a rule of ap*592parent authority can be a rule of strict liability as the Court today holds in this case. In the context of a loosely structured, voluntary nonprofit association it may be wholly impractical to adopt any measures that will lessen substantially the likelihood of liability, and if there is liability the Court also would impose punitive damages.

 The intersection of the law of agency and vicarious liability with the law of conspiracy makes this a complex case. Yet the Court does not recognize this complexity. It so expands the concept of vicarious liability as to leave little content, in this case, to the requirement in § 1 of the Sherman *593Act that antitrust plaintiffs demonstrate a contract, combination, or conspiracy. Indeed, the Court never identifies who conspired with whom. Did James — acting for ASME — conspire with Hardin — acting for McDonnell & Miller, Inc., and Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Co. ? Or was it the other way around? Could it be said, under the Court’s theory, that James had conspired with himself — as a double agent— thereby committing both of his “principals” to an antitrust conspiracy? In my view, it makes more sense to view the matter as a conspiracy between the agents of McDonnell & Miller, Inc., and Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Co. The Court’s theory makes possible ratification by ASME irrelevant. In this light, ASME was as much a victim of this conspiracy as Hydrolevel.

 It is relevant to note that a nonprofit organization cannot reduce the burden of a treble-damages award by deducting the award as a business expense. See P. Areeda & D. Turner, Antitrust Law § 311a (1978) (“treble damages are generally a deductible business expense for federal income tax purposes”).