Court Opinion

ID: 9599867
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:21:58.154065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:47.209332
License: Public Domain

*334LUCAS, J.
I concur in the judgment for the reasons stated in parts III and IV of the majority opinion. However, I believe that the majority opinion’s analysis of the Noerr-Pennington doctrine’s application is unnecessary to the result and therefore neither join in nor dissent to my colleagues’ premature discussion.1
The majority opinion begins by stating “We must decide whether efforts to influence municipal action that are intended to and actually do produce anticompetitive effects are violative of the Cartwright Act when both private individuals and public officials participate.” (Ante, at p. 316, italics added.) However, in my opinion there was no such necessity: even if it had been determined that plaintiff could have stated a Cartwright cause of action it would have been of no avail because the action had been properly dismissed.
I agree that application of the Noerr-Pennington doctrine in the context presented here is an interesting question. Nonetheless, I conclude that its resolution was not required and has no effect on the outcome of this case because dismissal was simultaneously and properly granted pursuant to the application of settled principles of law.
Bird, C. J., concurred.

This view of course also extends to the other contentions more summarily dealt with in section II, subdivisions A, C, D, E, and F of the majority opinion. My focus on NoerrPennington treatment is due to its primacy in the opinion and its novelty.