Court Opinion

ID: 9842976
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:23:10.056785+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:23.035672
License: Public Domain

HARLINGTON WOOD, Jr., Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
While I agree with the majority’s opinion in a number of areas, including its view of regulatory immunity, the general conduct and fairness of the trial, the illegality of AT & T’s conduct in regard to local interconnections, the tariff filings, negotiations and disconnections, and the legality of the denial of multipoint interconnections, there are certain other areas in which I respectfully offer other views. Even the recognized experts in this field upon whom the courts look for guidance constantly quarrel among *1175themselves about some of these matters. The impression is left, at least as of now, that we cannot select and apply one view or another with unequivocal confidence. This case will not in the least settle the academic controversies. It should not be surprising, therefore, that, among the judges who have had to struggle with this case, there is not complete unanimity. This expression of my own views is not intended to be critical of the views of my colleagues.
Before considering those issues, I add only a preliminary comment. Some shock in the legal community was evident from the record breaking $1.8 billion verdict. This panel, however, has not approached this case intimidated by the size of the verdict, or with the attitude that necessarily because of its size there must be reversible error in the process somewhere. The issues have been approached as they would have been in a less expensive case. In my view the attorneys on both sides, Judge Grady, and the jury performed, not perfectly, but remarkably well considering that this is an extraordinarily complex and multifaceted case.1 My initial impression was that certain reversible errors were readily apparent, but upon closer examination some of the novel events turned out to be not so disturbing in the particular circumstances. If there is any inclination, however, to generally find fault with the impressive verdict, I would shift a good share of the blame on to the law itself. There is necessarily permitted in antitrust cases some laxity in the computation of damages as we shall discuss. A just and reasonable “estimate,” based upon relevant data, will suffice although it must be short of speculation or guess work. After a jury, with that practical computation leeway, has conscientiously rendered a verdict which presumably the jury believes will fully compensate the plaintiff for its damages, the statute then takes over and multiplies that verdict by three. There must be some surprised jurors who later come to realize what they have wrought. It is even conceivable that a struggling competitor securing a trebled judgment could not have been more fortunate than to have suffered the damage at the hands of the losing competitor. In my judgment the trebling requirement deserves Congressional review. Discretionary punitive damages, for example, might be an alternative for extreme cases in place of statutory multiplication. But, in any event, we have to try to resolve this case as we now find the law and the evidence.
1. HI-LO AND PREDATORY PRICING
A. The Inappropriateness of Exclusively Cost-Based Standards
My first point of difference with the majority concerns the elusive question of predatory pricing. In setting aside the jury’s determination that AT & T was guilty of predatory pricing in connection with its Hi-Lo tariff, the majority has given indications of its philosophy concerning antitrust. Its belief appears to be that the antitrust laws should be concerned only with advancing consumer welfare and should thus focus exclusively on issues of efficiency. To implement that concern the majority would find that, in most cases, no price above Long-Run Incremental Cost could be held predatory.2
*1176While efficiency and consumer welfare are laudable goals, they should not be permitted to entirely eclipse a major aim of the antitrust laws: the promotion of competition. To advance efficiency ahead of competition in the hierarchy of antitrust values is to slight the non-economic dimension of the Sherman Act’s concern with competition. In any event good healthy competition itself fosters efficiency and results in public benefits. I am not sure that the majority's LRIC rule should be the almost exclusive method of advancing consumer welfare.
In addition to focusing on the promotion of price competition, the antitrust laws have shown an equal concern for the abuse of monopoly power. Judicial condemnation of predatory pricing by a monopolist bent on destroying or deterring new competition is an appropriate and frequent target of antitrust doctrine. As the majority states, “Predatory pricing is prohibited because of the fear that a monopoly or dominant firm will deliberately sacrifice present revenues for the purpose of driving rivals from the market and thus recoup its losses through higher profits earned in the absence of competition.” Supra, at p. 1112. Perhaps in the market place it does not always work that way, although I believe that it may, but in any event a lot of undue damage and disruption can be caused by those monopolists who believe that it is effective economic behavior.
This circuit has previously expressed its intention to consider a wide range of factors in determining whether such conduct may be predatory in particular circumstances. Chillicothe Sand & Gravel Co. v. Martin Marietta Corp., 615 F.2d 427, 430 (7th Cir. 1980). The majority’s willingness to retreat to a more mechanical test clashes with the holdings of Chillicothe and other cases which have refused to attach a conclusive presumption to any one form of evidence. Borden, Inc. v. FTC, 674 F.2d 498, 515 (6th Cir.1982), cert. granted,-U.S.-, 103 S.Ct. 2115, 77 L.Ed.2d 1298 (1983); Pacific Engineering & Production Co. v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 551 F.2d 790 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 879, 98 S.Ct. 234, 54 L.Ed.2d 160 (1977). Most recently the Ninth Circuit adopted a broad approach to analyzing predatory pricing. In William Inglis & Sons Baking Co. v. ITT Continental Baking Co., 668 F.2d 1014 (9th Cir.1982), cert. denied,-U.S.-, 103 S.Ct. 58, 74 L.Ed.2d 61 (1982), the court stated that, in order to establish the existence of predatory pricing, a plaintiff must prove that the anticipated benefits of defendant’s price depended on its tendency to discipline or eliminate competition and thereby enhance the firm’s long-term ability to reap the benefits of monopoly power. 668 F.2d at 1035. In place of economic formulae, the court created a test employing both economic and non-economic criteria. 668 F.2d at 1035-36.
It was just such a broad-ranging inquiry that was undertaken by the trial court in this case. The jury was permitted to find AT & T liable under Section 2 of the Sherman Act upon evidence that the anticipated effect of its Hi-Lo tariff was to eliminate MCI and thus restore AT & T’s full market power. The jury was foreclosed from doing so, however, if Hi-Lo prices were found to exceed fully distributed cost, the “safe harbor” selected in this case.3 MCI argued *1177that only when AT & T’s prices were proven to exceed fully distributed cost should the normal inquiry into predatory conduct be limited. If below this level, MCI argued, the tariff price may well have resulted from AT & T’s internal manipulation and transfer of its monopoly resources among a variety of service categories to unlawfully focus upon and obliterate MCI. If above this level, MCI conceded, the prices should be presumed to reflect good faith competitive motivation.
Yet the majority holds that in most cases, where price exceeds long-run incremental cost, this wide-ranging inquiry into predatory design is not permitted.4 This conclusion is largely a product of the majority’s characterization of the cost standards used in this case as merely differing definitions of average total cost.5 I remain convinced that such a limiting rule fails to properly credit the history of the Sherman Act and antitrust policy and also fails as an all-inclusive measure of consumer welfare. If you really wanted to know what caused the unsavory flavor of the monopoly broth, you would not just audit the chef’s books of account; you would also take a look at his recipe. City of Mishawaka v. American Electric Power Company, Inc., 616 F.2d 976, 986 (7th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1096, 101 S.Ct. 892, 66 L.Ed.2d 824 (1981).
1. The History and Goals of the Sherman Act
The majority’s insistence that an arguably predatory pattern of behavior is of no concern to the antitrust laws where prices exceed incremental costs rests first on its assumption that market efficiency is the historical and normative goal of the antitrust laws. Thus, the majority dismisses concerns about the existence of vast social and economic power of monopolies per se, and effectively sides with one group of commentators who argue that the Sherman Act was foremost an attempt to correct the distortion of resource allocation created by large economic units. See e.g., R. Bork, The Antitrust Paradox 61-66 (1978); R. Posner, Antitrust Law (1976). The majority, like these commentators, accepts the proposition that the antitrust laws are concerned only with efficiency and thus concludes that arguably monopolistic practices which do not disturb efficiency should escape liability pro tanto.
However, a very different story has been told by other historians and scholars of antitrust. There is a persistent strain running through the creation and political endurance of the antitrust laws which reveals them to be instruments to ensure the disaggregation of concentrated economic *1178power and to assure fairness among competitors, and not just instruments to assure neoclassical economic efficiency, as worthy and beneficial a goal as that may be. As the late Professor Hofstadter wrote,
What makes it possible to institutionalize antitrust activity ... is not a consensus among economists as to its utility in enhancing economic efficiency, but a rough consensus in society at large as to its value in curbing the dangers of excessive market power. As in the beginning, it is based on a political and moral judgment rather than the outcome of economic measurement or even distinctively economic criteria.6
That the concern with monopoly was at its origins not confined to technical efficiency arguments was made clear by Senator Sherman himself, who defended his namesake Act by noting,
If the concentrated powers of [monopoly] are entrusted to a single man, it is a kingly prerogative, inconsistent with our form of government, and should be subject to the strong resistance of the state and national authorities. If we will not endure a king as a political power we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life.7
The early antitrust cases were quick to elaborate this strain which addressed the dangers of concentrated social and economic power, and to insist upon its priority over more technical efficiency criteria. As Justice Peckham noted in United States, v. Trans-Missouri Freight Association, 166 U.S. 290, 17 S.Ct. 540, 41 L.Ed. 1007 (1897),
In business or trading combinations may even temporarily, or perhaps permanently, reduce the price of the article traded in or manufactured, by reducing the expense inseparable from the running of many different companies for the same purpose. Trade or commerce under these conditions may nevertheless be badly and unfortunately restrained by driving out of business the small dealers ... [M]ere reduction in the price of the commodity dealt in might be dearly paid for by the run of such a class, and the absorption of control over the commodity by an all-powerful combination of capital.
Id. at 323-324, 17 S.Ct. at 552.
Throughout this century, in a variety of contexts, from boycotts to vertical integration, the Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected the notion that a concern with market efficiency should be permitted to eclipse the broader, social concerns of the antitrust laws.8 Even in times of relative economic hardship, American legal and political culture has staunchly resisted the rationalization of monopolistic economic power on the basis of efficiency.9 So overwhelming has been the American abhorrence of the concentration of economic power (and its concomitant restriction of the range of private discretion and opportunity and tendency to trigger the responsive enhancement of Big Government) that
despite the inconvenience, lack of predictability, and general mess introduced into the economists’ allegedly cohesive and tidy world of exclusively micro-economic analysis, an antitrust policy that failed to take political concerns into account would be unresponsive to the will of Congress and out of touch with the rough political consensus that has sup*1179ported antitrust enforcement for almost a century.10
With this rich history and jurisprudence stressing the wide-ranging social concern of the antitrust laws, it is difficult to entirely understand the enthusiasm with .which many embrace the theory that these laws stand only for economic efficiency. Intellectual fashion no doubt plays a part. It is interesting to note in this connection that the historical and jurisprudential arguments on behalf of this narrowed horizon for the antitrust laws were not articulated with any coherence until the mid-1960’s, when the “law and economics” movement began to attain an academic foothold. This new “efficiency only” paradigm was not applied to the predatory pricing area until less than a decade ago, in a seminal article by Professors Areeda and Turner.11 While it is perhaps best left for legal historians to trace the intellectual origins and impact of the “law and economics” approach,12 we note here only that it is at most a set of contestable premises and certainly a relative newcomer to areas marked by rich legislative and decisional history. While not negating the value of policy arguments based on efficiency, I am hesitant to abandon the jurisprudence and historical texture of the antitrust laws in order to embrace a set of seemingly hard and fast efficiency rules which present an illusion of conceptual and empirical tidiness. Instead, I would continue to permit the kind of inquiry into predatory use of economic power which this court encouraged in Chillicothe in order to preserve the important values embodied in the Sherman Act. I would agree with Professor Sullivan that
To argue, as do the Chicago economists, that antitrust ought to be used solely to inhibit expressions of market power in a technical economic sense, is not only to miss much in the history and development of the law, but to ignore much of its potential ... The political consensus that supports antitrust comes from other sources. Americans continue to value institutions the scale and the workings of which they can comprehend. Many continue to value the decentralization of de-cisionmaking power and responsibility. Many favor structures in which power in one locus may be checked by power in another. Antitrust, broadly conceived and sensitively administered, may contribute to the realization of these values.13
I submit that no such contribution will be made if we limit our definition of unlawful predation to the transgression of efficiency as defined by the formulae of micro-economies.
The majority makes one additional argument in support of its restriction of the predation inquiry in this case to the search for market efficiency: the existence of parallel federal regulation of AT & T. Supra, at pp. 1110-1111. Thus, the majority avers, this court should temper the execution of its antitrust mandate to judge AT & T’s conduct in view of the knowledge that the FCC stands ready to effect technical improvement and competition in the telecommunications market. Since it is really just a weaker version of the regulatory immunity argument properly rejected by the majority, this argument suffers from the same flaw. Chiefly, it fails to account for the historically independent role that *1180the antitrust laws have played in our multi-polar regulatory system.
A necessary tension exists between ma-joritarian regulation which seeks efficiency and the somewhat broader goals of antitrust policy, which seeks to protect fair competition and to restrain monopoly even where the latter is found efficient in some technical economic sense. The majority’s view relies on a simplified picture of governmental telecommunications regulation as a monolithic and coordinated search for the single best policy, ignoring the less tidy reality that regulatory policy in our system is shaped by competing ideas of the good emanating from many loci. The antitrust laws, as applied by the judiciary, play a vital countervailing role in this enterprise.14 To argue, as does the majority, that the courts should limit their antitrust inquiry while leaving to the regulatory authorities the duty of addressing the long-term problems of the market is to withdraw from the delicate interplay contemplated for our system of overlapping regulation and antitrust enforcement. If the majority approach is now determined to be the most beneficial for society, I would prefer to have the Congress say so.
2. LRIC and Consumer Welfare in the Monopoly Context
Even assuming that someone’s concept of consumer welfare is the only goal of the antitrust laws, an assumption about which I have reservations, I have serious doubts as to whether these ends are well protected, at least in a monopoly context, by the majority’s reluctance to look at evidence other than that concerning cost and prices. In short, the majority’s preoccupation with one special form of efficiency, I believe, is too narrow even as an economic basis for a sound antitrust policy.
The standards advocated by the majority measure efficiency solely in terms of the ability to produce a good or service for the lowest possible cost. But it would require a leap of faith in order to conclude that such efficiency is synonymous with actual consumer benefit, the avowed goal of the majority.
First, a monopolist, even if it is more efficient than any potential rival, has only limited incentives to pass cost savings along *1181to its customers in the form of price reductions; this lack of incentives is due precisely to its monopoly position. Thus, under such circumstances, promoting the entry initially of seemingly a less efficient firm as a competitor could still be of great benefit to consumers.15 Brodley and Hay, Predatory Pricing: Competing Economic Theories and the Evolution of Legal Standards, 66 Cornell L.Rev. 738, 744-45 (1981). A healthy competitor might generate even more efficiencies and consumer benefits.
Second, and more importantly, the exclusive use of an LRIC standard to evaluate predatory pricing ignores the fact that predation is a strategic weapon available to a monopolist facing a new entrant. Such a test is therefore insensitive to the many forms of strategic conduct by a dominant firm which have no legitimate business purpose and are only instituted to discipline or eliminate competition with accompanying long-run detrimental effects for consumers. Because of the element of strategic choice in predatory pricing it is necessary to formulate a test which avoids the indeterminacy of price theory. L. Sullivan, Economics and More Humanistic Disciplines: What are the Sources of Wisdom for Antitrust?, 125 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1214, 1228 (1977).
Thus, the greatest danger in attaching conclusive presumptions to a comparison of prices and costs is the resultant tendency to ignore the more subtle ways in which monopoly power can be exploited to the detriment of both competitors and consumers. The majority’s rule may have greater validity in deciding allegations of predatory pricing in attempt to monopolize cases where the defendant lacks monopoly power. However, there are sound economic and social reasons to be wary of the market power exercised by an existent monopolist who confronts a new entrant.16
The most blatant predatory use of monopoly power theoretically is, of course, a quick price cut upon entry until the competitor withdraws, at which time prices are raised back to monopoly levels to recoup the temporary losses sustained. There are, however, a variety of more subtle ways in which a monopolist can exploit his power. For example, the lowering of price in anticipation of entry can be as effective a threat to new competition as actually engaging in a price war. Indeed, a respected branch of the field of industrial organization economics cautions us to be wary of the problems of this form of “limit pricing” whereby a monopolist may still make a profit but eliminate the threat or actual entry of a new competitor as the field suddenly looks less economically inviting. L. Sullivan, Antitrust Law, § 46(c) (1977); Scherer, Predatory Pricing and the Sherman Act: A Comment, 89 Harv.L.Rev. 869 (1976); Scherer, Some Last Words on Predatory Pricing, 89 Harv.L.Rev. 901 (1976). In response to these concerns, no other than Dr. William Baumol, AT & T’s principal expert witness, has advocated a rule holding any non-permanent price reduction by a monopolist to be predatory pricing. Baumol, Quasi-Permanence of Price Reductions: A Policy for Prevention of Predatory Pricing, 89 Yale L.J. 1 (1979). Cf., Joskow & Klevorick, A Framework for Predatory Pricing Policy, 89 Yale L.J. 213, 250-55 (1979).
But “limit pricing” is not the only tactic which may prove availing for a predator. A monopolist producing multiple products and services may arbitrarily and systematically shift its revenues and costs between *1182and among competitive products and monopoly products, resulting in widely divergent rates of return between these two types of markets. Such a strategy is nothing more than a disguised price reduction and serves no purpose other than to eliminate or discipline troublesome competitors. See Borden, Inc. v. FTC, 674 F.2d 498, 514 (6th Cir.1982), cert. granted, - U.S. -, 103 S.Ct. 2115,77 L.Ed.2d 1298 (1983). A thinly financed competitor may be vulnerable, regardless of relative efficiency, when a monopolist is willing to tolerate rates of return which, although profitable, are nonetheless below his normal expectations and reflect a systematic mar-shalling of monopoly resources to eliminate a competitor. See Richter Concrete Corp. v. Hilltop Basic Resources, Inc., 547 F.Supp. 893 (S.D.Ohio 1981); In re IBM Peripheral EDP Devices Antitrust Litigation, 481 F.Supp. 965, 991-92 (N.D.Cal.1979), appeal docketed, No. 80—4048 (9th Cir. Jan. 31, 1980). Cf. International Air Industries v. American Excelsior Co., 517 F.2d 714, 725 n. 32 (5th Cir.1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 943, 96 S.Ct. 1411, 47 L.Ed.2d 349 (1976) (“absence of aid from other markets is a determinative factor in evaluating allegedly predatory conduct”).
Recently the Sixth Circuit used this latter type of analysis in affirming the FTC’s finding that a monopolist improperly used differential pricing to discipline or eliminate competitors in select geographic markets where competition existed. Borden, Inc. v. FTC, 674 F.2d 498 (6th Cir.1982), cert. granted, - U.S. -, 103 S.Ct. 2115, 77 L.Ed.2d 1298 (1983). Although noting that prices were set below average total cost, the court found it unnecessary to determine the appropriate cost-based test since the case involved blatant price manipulation by a monopolist.
That case, like the one at bar, presents the unique situation of a
monopolist marketing a product which could command a premium price, giving it significant pricing leverage over its competitors. ReaLemon historically has dominated the processed lemon juice market and has affected competition adversely through selective geographic price promotions and unreasonably low prices. The record supports the Commission’s conclusion that Borden intended to continue its domination with the same long term effect of reducing or eliminating competition.
Id. at 515. The court emphasized the entire context in which Borden’s differential pricing occurred: the price changes were initiated only when competitors began successfully to encroach on Borden’s business, id. at 513; price reductions were keyed only to markets where competition existed, id.; the price reductions occurred in markets where costs were higher and thus, presumably, where prices should have been higher, see id. at 514 n. 40; and Borden realistically was able to conclude that the variety of non-competitive markets from which it could draw profits to offset its short-term losses in markets where it reduced prices promised the company could reap greater rewards in the long-run once competition was diminished, id. at 514. It is difficult to defend that monopolistic antagonism to competition as efficiency and of benefit to consumers.
The court in Borden thus upheld the FCC’s determination that the totality of the circumstances showed that the monopolist improperly undermined its competitors by manipulating costs and prices between markets where competition existed and markets where it traded alone. Borden did not engage in competition on the merits but used its position in other markets to gain leverage over its competitors. Even the dissent in Borden would have upheld the FTC on that basis. See id. at 517, 521 (Kennedy, J., dissenting) (finding ambiguity in the basis of the FTC’s determination).
These are merely examples of the types of anticompetitive conduct by a dominant firm which have medium- to long-run impact on competition and consumer welfare but which cannot be easily addressed by a simplistic price-cost comparison, no matter what measure of cost is utilized. Pricing above average variable cost or LRIC is at *1183best an indeterminate method of analyzing the motives and effects of price cuts by a monopolist. To shed light on these pricing strategies, which are the conscious decision of the corporate planners, it is only proper that a plaintiff be allowed to come forward with direct evidence of defendant’s intent in this regard. Because predatory pricing involves an element of corporate strategy on the part of the defendant, mechanically applied cost standards fail to address the strategic essence of predatory pricing. Brodley and Hay, Predatory Pricing: Competing Economic Theories and the Evolution of Legal Standards, 66 Cornell L.Rev. 738, 756 (1981); Dirlam, Marginal Cost Pricing Tests for Predation: Naive Welfare Economics and Public Policy, 26 Antitrust Bull. 769 (1981). See also F.M. Scherer, Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance 537-38 (2d ed. 1980) (rejecting all mechanical tests in favor of a wide-ranging rule of reason inquiry). More is needed to distinguish genuine competition from illegal conduct. The replay of this case here, though far from instant, confirms the correctness of the jury’s initial penalty call against AT & T for “unnecessary roughness” and “unsportsmanlike conduct.”
Intent evidence, if it can be found, is particularly probative of the reasons behind price changes by a dominant firm. This is the critical factor recognized by this court in Chillicothe and the Ninth Circuit in In-glis and its progeny17 in rejecting price-cost data as the sole test for predation. While the inference of predatory intent from the evidence obviously entails an inquiry which must be done on a case-by-case basis, that task is not an overwhelming one. This circuit undertook just such an inquiry in National Dairy Products Corp. v. FTC, 412 F.2d 605, 618-20 (7th Cir.1969) and set forth examples of the types of record evidence which support the proof of predatory intent.
In sum, if antitrust law is to be more than applied theoretical and uncertain economies by opposing expert witnesses, then a place must be reserved for evidence of intent. Such evidence can include, as in Borden, a suspicious pattern of price reductions geared only to a firm’s competitive markets, combined with evidence that the firm sought to offset the resultant revenue sacrifice by increasing revenues from other, noncompetitive markets, Borden, 674 F.2d at 513, 514, or, as in National Dairy Products, evidence that a firm undertook research to gain knowledge of its competitor’s weakness and then massively concentrated its resources in an all out strategic program of product promotion to inflict damage on the competitor, National Dairy Products, 412 F.2d at 618, 619. Although direct evidence of intent will rarely be conclusive, the court should also consider statements of chief actors expressing a design to inhibit competitors by means other than the predatory firm’s own ability to perform effectively in the market, or, put another way, to impose calculated harm on another firm rather than primarily seeking gains for itself. See Sullivan, supra, at 111.
In response to the majority’s contention that evidence of intent is inherently untrustworthy and ambiguous we can only note the at least equally inexact nature of economic and accounting evidence and the ambiguity entailed in sorting out the diametrically opposed expert testimony generated in predatory pricing cases. These two weak components need each other. It is in areas where conduct may be ambiguous, but in which intent plays a role, that the judicial forum is most appropriate. As noted by Professor Sullivan:
A firm which seeks to drive out or exclude rivals by selling at unremunerative prices will leave human traces; the very concept is one of a human animus bent, if you please, upon a course of conduct socially disapproved. If there is one task that judges and juries, informed through the adversary system, may really be good *1184at, it is identifying the pernicious in human affairs....
Purpose and intent are always difficult to deal with, particularly so in connection with complex business conduct. But the antitrust laws need not disregard the pernicious. There is a difference between competing aggressively and effectively and competing in a predatory way and that difference has to do as much with the human animus which infuses a firm’s activities as it does with the objective character of its acts.
Sullivan, supra, at 110, 111. I think we are making a mistake to create exclusively cost-based rules which neglect this vital teaching. When examining the conduct of sophisticated business executives manipulating monopoly power against a brash and encroaching new adversary I would not exclude evidence ordinarily considered relevant in order to satisfy one uncertain, restrictive view of economic behavior.
B. Evidence of AT & T’s Predatory Pricing
Unlike the majority, I would hold that, within the parameters of our decisions in Chillicothe and National Dairy Products, and with the guidance of Borden, Inc. v. FTC, there was evidence of pricing below FDC accompanied by predatory intent sufficient to sustain a finding of predatory pricing.
The majority first attacks MCI’s evidence of AT & T’s below-FDC pricing as lacking the minimal “rigorous analysis” required to meet its sufficiency burden. Specifically, the majority attacks the summary and aggregated nature of MCI’s figures, claiming that since only the Hi-D portion of Hi-Lo was in issue, only evidence of Hi-D costs is relevant. I cannot agree. AT & T’s own proposed instructions refer to findings on the Hi-Lo tariff and not to Hi-D alone. Nor did AT & T object on that basis to the Hi-Lo instruction actually given. It is true that the evidence focused on the Hi-D routes upon which actual competition occurred. That focus was necessary because prices were reduced on the Hi-D routes, causing private line service to register an overall loss. MCI’s evidence, however, showed that MCI intended to compete with AT & T even on Lo-D routes. The Hi-Lo tariff as a whole was properly in issue.
In its proof of below FDC pricing, MCI used AT & T’s own submissions to the FCC for “private line” service to establish the cost component in AT & T’s overall pricing scheme. Hi-Lo was the only unprofitable item in the submissions. MCI’s expert witness^ — who for more than ten years has reviewed AT & T’s cost studies for the FCC and others — testified that after accounting for all other items in the cost and revenue documents AT & T had presented at trial and before the FCC, private line service was priced below average total cost by as much as $99 million in 1975. AT & T did not object to the admission of that evidence, preferring to argue a contrary position on the basis of other documents and accounting methods. The jury was presented with the opposing views and made its considered choice. The testimony and MCI’s supporting documents are at least minimally sufficient to sustain that choice.
This case is unlike Broadway Delivery Corp. v. United Parcel Service of America, 651 F.2d 122 (2d Cir.1981), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 968, 102 S.Ct. 512, 70 L.Ed.2d 384 (1981), cited by the majority, in which summaries of costs and prices across all of the defendant’s operations were lumped together without an attempt on the plaintiff’s part to analyze the significance of the tendered figures. In that case, the defendant was the only party to offer evidence on the significance of the figures as properly adjusted. Here, MCI offered expert testimony that after making appropriate adjustments, the private line cost and revenue figures showed losing operations for Hi-Lo.
In any event, I believe there was sufficient evidence from which the jury could conclude that on Hi-D routes alone service was well below cost. Hi-D was the only portion of the Hi-Lo program that reduced rates, and it accounted for a high propor*1185tion of anticipated sales. Yet despite the revenue increase from other lines, Hi-Lo experienced overall, revenue deficiencies from the moment it was introduced and throughout the liability period in this case. The jury was entitled to infer that the Hi-D rate reductions resulted in prices below FDC.
I believe that the majority’s attack on the use of aggregate private line revenue figures, which were unravelled by MCI’s expert in a logical, step-by-step fashion is diminishing the function of the trier of fact. Especially in antitrust cases, precise internal cost and revenue figures relating to a particular function will rarely be separable, and some inferential analysis of the available cost data will almost always be required. As with its assessment of the proof of damage evidence, the majority would subject competing evidence to exacting mathematical scrutiny, a practice which will, I fear, make recovery for antitrust violations virtually impossible in many eases.
Not only did' sufficient evidence show that AT & T’s Hi-Lo pricing was not above the FDC “safe harbor,” but there was also other evidence sufficient to submit the question of predatory intent to the jury. As we noted in National Dairy Products, “Literal proof of actual intent is seldom available. Resort must therefore and usually is made, in proving predatory intent, to the legally acceptable inference thereof from the direct and circumstantial evidence.” National Dairy Products, 412 F.2d at 618. In Borden, the Sixth Circuit approved the inference of predatory intent from the entire context of differential pricing by a dominant firm: the price changes were instituted only where competition had begun to encroach upon the defendant’s business, price reductions were keyed only to competitive markets even though costs were higher there, and the defendant could reasonably expect that it could draw profits from a variety of noncompetitive markets to allay short-term revenue sacrifices suffered for the purpose of eliminating competition. Borden, 674 F.2d at 513-15. MCI’s evidence showed that AT & T engaged in similar pricing that was at least as manipulative as the differential, anticompetitive pricing condemned in Borden.
MCI adduced evidence that AT & T deliberately lowered its revenues in the markets in which it competed with MCI and raised prices in its other, noncompetitive markets, such as provision of WATS. Thus, the evidence suggested, WATS users may have paid most of the fixed costs shared between WATS and Hi-Lo service. In addition, MCI adduced evidence that this abrupt shifting of prices and revenues was aimed precisely at briskly eliminating MCI from the competitive scene. The differential pricing AT & T established for its Hi-Lo markets was based on a supposedly objective criterion, namely whether the circuit served a high or low volume market. Yet AT & T’s own advisors questioned the way in which the markets were divided, noting that even by the criteria AT & T used, many of the Lo-D cities (where prices were raised) should have been classified as Hi-D locations. The evidence also revealed that AT & T advisors also expressed doubts that after the adjustments the Hi-D services would be priced in a cost justified manner. PX 2962 at Tr. 10473. From this the jury could infer that the reduced prices for Hi-D were predatory tactics designed to eliminate MCI as a competitor along those routes.18 AT & T’s goal was further to temporarily decrease its own loss from such predatory tactics by raising prices on the inaccurately constituted Lo-D *1186lines where MCI was not yet operative, and by charging higher prices for other services, such as WATS.
II. PRE-ANNOUNCEMENT OF HI-LO
The majority holds that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury’s finding that the announcement of the Hi-Lo tariff twenty-one months before the price change became effective was an act of monopolization. In essence, the majority concludes that the jury was required to believe AT & T’s explanation that the “regulatory context” prevented it from obtaining FCC permission to initiate the tariff sooner. As with its holdings of insufficient evidence in connection with proof of damage and proof of below FDC pricing, the majority in my view here again intervenes to express its preference as between two equally credible versions of the truth.
The jury was entitled to infer that the pre-announcement was a violation of the antitrust laws if it found that AT & T intended to deceive potential customers in furtherance of an attempt to monopolize. See Americana Industries v. Wometco de Puerto Rico, 556 F.2d 625 (1st Cir.1977); 3 P. Areeda & D. Turner, Antitrust Law ¶ 738i at 284 (1978). The jury was correctly instructed that the time interval between AT & T’s announcement and implementation of its new prices could constitute a predatory act if the reason for the interval was to discourage buyers from purchasing MCI’s services. If AT & T did not expect the service to be available when it announced that it would be, the pre-announcement could be found to be a predatory act. See ILC Peripherals Leasing Corp. v. IBM Corp., 458 F.Supp. 423 (N.D.Cal.1978), aff’d per curiam sub nom. Memorex Corp. v. IBM Corp., 636 F.2d 1188 (9th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 972, 101 S.Ct. 3126, 69 L.Ed.2d 983 (1981).
MCI adduced sufficient evidence to sustain the jury’s conclusion that AT & T intended to mislead the public as to the expected effective date of the new tariff. Internal AT & T documents show that even before its filing in February 1973, AT & T planned a “voluntary extension of the effective date up to March 1, 1974.” While there is nothing per se wrong with publicizing the tariff filing as it is a matter of public record, Cox Broadcasting Co. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469, 95 S.Ct. 1029, 43 L.Ed.2d 328 (1975), that announcement may be evidence of anticompetitive intent where, as here, the anticipated effective date of the rates announced is knowingly false. AT & T’s internal documents suggest that AT & T intended to take advantage of its monopoly position to manipulate consumer response to MCI’s competitive drive through a misleading announcement.
In line with AT & T’s position on the pre-announcement issue, the jury was instructed to consider AT & T’s argument that delays in implementation were the result of “regulatory lag” rather than anti-competitive conduct. The jury chose to credit MCI’s evidence to the contrary, as it was entitled to do. See City of Mishawaka v. American Electric Power Co., Inc., 616 F.2d 976 (7th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1096, 101 S.Ct. 892, 66 L.Ed.2d 824 (1981), in which this court noted that the “legal and practical maze” that often accompanies regulatory proceedings cannot be allowed to conceal an “illegal opportunity with a legitimate gloss.” Id. at 983-84. The jury could infer anticompetitive intent and effect from AT & T’s pre-announcement even though that action was subject to conflicting interpretations. The jury was adequately apprised of the regulatory structure within which AT & T had to operate and thus could decide where regulatory drag ended and anticompetitive delay began.
I am not sure how the majority manages to find insufficient evidence of intent to mislead, for all of the contrary evidence it cites relates only to various procedures, con-cededly time-consuming, through which AT & T would have to go to effect the tariff. This evidence does not address AT & T’s clear intent, as expressed through its internal memorandum, to deliberately extend that process even longer than otherwise necessary. The majority concedes that AT *1187& T’s own unilateral decision was at one point responsible for a delay of two months, but characterizes this delay as “minimal.” This seems inconsistent with the majority’s stress in its discussion of interconnections upon the make-or-break importance of even short delays or market forestallments in the highly dynamic telecommunications market. At the very least, AT & T’s intent in acceding to this delay raised a question suitable for jury determination.
III. DAMAGE PROOF
The majority holds MCI’s damage proof insufficient on two related grounds. The majority first holds that MCI’s damage calculation in the lost profits study was flawed because it was based upon incorrect or irrelevant data that undermined certain assumptions in the study and consequently permitted the jury to speculate as to the true extent of damage.
The majority also holds that MCI failed to discharge the requisite burden of proof on damage certainty because MCI’s lost profits study and other damage proof expressed only an aggregate damage figure and thus did not permit the jury to segregate legitimate competitive losses attributable to lawful conduct from damages attributable to unlawful acts. In other words, the majority holds that MCI had an obligation to identify and segregate the specific damages flowing from each alleged act in order to provide a rational basis upon which the jury could reduce its total damage award in the event it found certain of AT & T’s acts to have been lawful.
As a result of these asserted deficiencies, the majority has ordered a new trial in order to assess damages. I believe that the majority’s holding contravenes clear precedent in this circuit and will effectively permit future antitrust wrongdoers to escape liability.
A. Disaggregation
The damage question in private antitrust suits consists of two distinct components: the fact of injury or damage — which concerns the causal link between a plaintiff’s injury and the unlawful conduct of a defendant — and the amount of damage. Fontana Aviation, Inc. v. Beech Aircraft Corp., 432 F.2d 1080, 1085 (7th Cir.1970), cert. denied, 401 U.S. 923, 91 S.Ct. 872, 27 L.Ed.2d 923 (1971). See Terrell v. Household Goods Carriers’ Bureau, 494 F.2d 16, 20 (5th Cir.), cert. dismissed, 419 U.S. 987, 95 S.Ct. 246, 42 L.Ed.2d 260 (1974). Once sufficient evidence is presented related to the fact of damage, uncertainty concerning the exact amount of loss will not preclude recovery. Story Parchment Co. v. Paterson Parchment Paper Co., 282 U.S. 555, 562-65, 51 S.Ct. 248, 250-.251, 75 L.Ed. 544 (1931); Fontana Aviation, 432 F.2d at 1085. As a general rule, proof of damage related to each act need not be precise. See Locklin v. Day-Glo Color Corp., 429 F.2d 873, 879 (7th Cir.1970), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 1020, 91 S.Ct. 582, 584, 27 L.Ed.2d 632 (1971). A just and reasonable estimate of the damage based upon relevant data may suffice.19 While this lightened burden does not permit *1188a jury to base an award upon speculation or guesswork, Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc., 395 U.S. 100, 123-24, 89 S.Ct. 1562, 1576-1577, 23 L.Ed.2d 129 (1969); City of Mishawaka v. American Electric Power Co., 616 F.2d 976, 986-87 (7th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1096, 101 S.Ct. 892, 66 L.Ed.2d 824 (1981), juries in such circumstances may act upon probable and inferential as well as direct and positive proof. Zenith, 395 U.S. at 123-24, 89 S.Ct. at 1576-1577; Locklin, 429 F.2d at 879-80. This rule recognizes the inherent difficulty of proving lost sales or profits. See Lehrman v. Gulf Oil Corp., 500 F.2d 659, 668 (5th Cir.1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 929, 95 S.Ct. 1128, 43 L.Ed.2d 400 (1975).20
Juries, however, must be able rationally to reduce estimated damages to reflect only losses directly attributable to unlawful competition. Coleman Motor Co. v. Chrysler Corp., 525 F.2d 1338, 1353 (3d Cir.1975). Thus, where possible, the plaintiff must isolate and segregate the damage impact due to each unlawful act. See Spray-Rite Service Corp. v. Monsanto Co., 684 F.2d 1226, 1242 (7th Cir.1982), cert. granted, - U.S. -, 103 S.Ct. 1249, 75 L.Ed.2d 479 (1983); In re IBM Peripheral EDP Devices Antitrust Litigation, 481 F.Supp. 965, 1013 (N.D.Cal.1979), appeal docketed, No. 80-4048 (9th Cir. Jan. 31, 1980); Van Dyk Research Corp. v. Xerox Corp., 478 F.Supp. 1268, 1316 (D.N.J.1979), aff’d, 631 F.2d 251 (3d Cir.1980), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 905, 101 S.Ct. 3029, 69 L.Ed.2d 405 (1981); SCM Corp. v. Xerox Corp., 463 F.Supp. 983, 1018-20 (D.Conn.1978), remanded for further proceedings, 599 F.2d 32 (2d Cir.1979) (per curiam), aff’d after remand, 645 F.2d 1195 (2d Cir.1981); ILC Peripherals Leasing Corp. v. IBM Corp., 458 F.Supp. 423 (N.D. Cal.1978), aff’d per curiam sub nom. 636 F.2d 1188 (9th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 972, 101 S.Ct. 3126, 69 L.Ed.2d 983 (1981).
. There is, then, a tension between the need for certainty of damage proof and acknowledgement that the nature of an antitrust violator’s acts may make it impossible to separate in a definite way the harm to a business caused by each separate unlawful act. See generally Goetz, The Basic Rules of Antitrust Damages, 49 Antitrust L.J. 125 (1981). The inability to disaggre-gate the total damages figure and allocate specific dollar amounts to each unlawful act makes the task of the fact finder difficult. This does not mean, however, that the wrongdoer can escape the consequences of its acts simply because a precise damage figure cannot be placed on those consequences. Spray-Rite, 684 F.2d at 1243. This tension must be resolved with an eye to the public function served by private antitrust actions. See Areeda, Anti-Trust Violations Without Damage Recoveries, 89 Harv.L.Rev. 1127 (1976).
Guidance in resolving this tension is provided by our recent decision in Spray-Rite Service Corp. v. Monsanto Co., 684 F.2d 1226 (7th Cir.1982), cert. granted, - U.S. -, 103 S.Ct. 1249, 75 L.Ed.2d 479 (1983), where we held that an antitrust “plaintiff claiming injury caused by more than one of the defendant’s unlawful practices need not prove the amount of damage caused by each illegal practice if the plaintiff shows that disaggregation is impracticable. [Instead, we hold that] if the plaintiff shows that such proof is impracticable, the burden shifts to the defendant to demonstrate the contrary.” Spray-Rite, 684 F.2d at 1243, citing Greene v. General Foods Corp., 517 F.2d 635, 665 (5th Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 942, 96 S.Ct. 1409, 47 L.Ed.2d 348 (1976); ILC Peripherals Leasing Corp. v. IBM Corp., 458 F.Supp. at 434.
This rule is predicated on considerations of sound judicial policy. For, as we noted *1189in Spray-Rite, “Any other rule would permit the defendant to escape compensating the plaintiff if the defendant’s wrongful conduct were sufficiently varied and effective to render more exact proof of damage impossible.” Spray-Rite, 684 F.2d at 1243. As a result, we held, even assuming that the plaintiff in that case had proven unlawful only one of three named practices and had shown as impracticable the disaggregation of the damages ensuing from each of these practices, and the defendant failed to rebut the plaintiff’s assertion by showing that disaggregation was indeed possible, recovery will not be denied to the plaintiff “merely because the jury may have found that [the defendant] combined lawful conduct with unlawful conduct making it impossible to determine which portion of the total damages was caused by the unlawful conduct.” Id. at 1243.
The majority attempts to confine the reach of Spray-Rite, arguing mainly that, in that case, this court affirmed the damage award only because the court was able to conclude that there was sufficient evidence to súpport a finding that all of the alleged acts were unlawful, supra, at 1163. However, this finding of sufficient evidence was mentioned by the court only in the context of a discussion of an issue unrelated to the disaggregation of damages, i.e., the admissibility of certain testimony. See Spray-Rite, 684 F.2d at 1252 n. 11. The Spray-Rite court explicitly prefaced its disaggregation holding with the statement of its arguendo assumption that the jury did not find all three practices part of the unlawful conspiracy, but rather that it found only one such act unlawful. Id. at 1243.
The majority also purports to distinguish Spray-Rite by arguing that, in that case, the possibly lawful acts which were alleged to have been part of the conspiracy were of “secondary importance” and that the “major injury” stemmed from an unquestionably unlawful act. However, nowhere does the Spray-Rite court indicate the relative importance of the various alleged acts. Moreover, to confine the Spray-Rite rule to cases where only the effects of “small ticket” items cannot be disaggregated would perversely permit exculpation only where the “monopoly broth” includes acts causing cataclysmic, rather than relatively minor, damages. The determination of what acts are or are not important in the case will again as a practical matter be difficult to administer because presumably the jury should be making those decisions rather than the court as a matter of law. I see no reason to indirectly amend Spray-Rite.
Applying to this case, then, the principles enunciated in Spray-Rite, I would hold that MCI has met its burden of proof. The damage proof proffered by MCI was claimed and appears to be the most specific and detailed that was possible given the complexities and nature of the alleged AT & T misconduct. MCI maintained throughout the trial and argues upon appeal that any more detailed proof would have been impossible. After thorough consideration of the parties’ arguments, the district court ultimately decided that MCI had done the best it was able to do. I agree. Even with the cooperation of AT & T it is unlikely that the majority view could have been satisfied. Thus, the court permitted testimony as to the correctness of the proof and its related assumptions and left it to the jury to reach a damage figure solely in light of any wrongful act of AT & T. Moreover, the district court instructed the jury that the damages must be related only to AT & T’s unlawful acts and must not be based upon other factors, including AT & T’s lawful acts. The court also properly instructed that damages should be assessed only so long as there was a reasonable basis in the evidence for the award, without speculation, and only if the specific damages were tied directly to and flowed directly from the jury’s findings of unlawful conduct.21
*1190The various unlawful acts and practices of AT & T, as well as their consequences to MCI, were so intertwined as to preclude the need for additional individualized consideration or calculation of damages. To require more in these circumstances by attempting to examine each unlawful act in a vacuum would only exacerbate any speculation AT & T now claims exists. The only reasonable and practical solution was to permit the jury, within its instructions and the evidence, to reach a single figure that would compensate MCI for the overall and combined unlawful conduct of and exclusion by AT & T. The fact that there was no specific damage amount attributable to each improper act did not deprive the jury of a rational basis upon which to render its damage award. The jury made reasonable adjustments in its figures to exclude lawful acts. Even the experts could do no more.
Once the plaintiff shows that segregation is impracticable or that its damage proof was as specific as reasonably possible, it is incumbent upon the defendant to demonstrate the contrary. See Spray-Rite, 684 F.2d at 1242, 1248; Fontana Aviation, 432 F.2d at 1087. See also Greene v. General Foods Corp., 517 F.2d 635, 662-65 (5th Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 942, 96 S.Ct. 1409, 47 L.Ed.2d 348 (1976). It is not clear that MCI’s damage evidence was deficient on its face. Even more importantly, AT & T never suggested a more viable method of damage calculation to rebut MCFs showing that the overall damage evidence was as specific as possible and to provide the jury and court with a more certain picture of damages attributable to each allegedly wrongful act. Instead, AT & T made a tactical choice in limiting its defense to the theory that MCI incurred no damage whatsoever.22
Often, the very nature of the antitrust wrong renders accurate damage calculation difficult, if not impossible. I would affirm the view of the district court that the jury should not consider each distinct aspect of AT & T’s conduct in a vacuum but should treat the acts in the context of AT & T’s overall conduct. AT & T’s conduct should be viewed as involving a continuing course of action intended wilfully to maintain its monopoly power and to exclude MCI, rather than as separate and discrete charges.23 It is the entire set of AT & T’s actions in combination which give rise to the damage award, not any one specific act.24 Although the number of legal and evidentiary issues presented in this appeal has required us to consider each instance of AT & T’s monopolizing conduct separately, we must be mindful of the fact that “plaintiffs should be given the full benefit of their proof without tightly compartmentalizing the various factual components and wiping the slate clean *1191after scrutiny of each.” Continental Ore Co. v. Union Carbide and Carbon Corp., 370 U.S. 690, 699, 82 S.Ct. 1404, 1410, 8 L.Ed.2d 777 (1962); Ohio-Sealy Mattress Mfg. Co. v. Sealy, Inc., 585 F.2d 821, 828 (7th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 930, 99 S.Ct. 1267, 59 L.Ed.2d 486 (1979).
The cases cited by the majority as undermining reliance upon the Spray-Rite rule in this case are all readily distinguishable from the instant case. In ILC Peripherals Leasing Corp. v. IBM Corp., 458 F.Supp. 423 (N.D.Cal.1978), aff’d per curiam sub nom. Memorex Corp. v. IBM Corp., 636 F.2d 1188 (9th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 972, 101 S.Ct. 3126, 69 L.Ed.2d 983 (1981), for example, the court concluded that the defendant had demonstrated, and plaintiff had failed to rebut, that methods other than those used by plaintiff were reasonably available to calculate more accurately the injury and to disaggregate the damages.25 The court stated that those methods, if used, would have provided the jury with a reasonable method of measuring the impact of each unlawful act. Thus, it was plaintiff’s unreasonable failure to use the best possible evidence, coupled with defendant’s demonstration that better methods could have been employed, which rendered the damage proof defective.26 See Spray-Rite, 684 F.2d at 1243 n. 13 (distinguishing ILC Peripherals).
The other cases cited by the majority fare no better as authority for its argument, as each case turns on factors not present in this case, including the failure to link the alleged injury to any of the defendant’s acts (Momand v. Universal Film Exchanges, Inc., 172 F.2d 37 (1st Cir.1948), cert. denied, 336 U.S. 967, 69 S.Ct. 939, 93 L.Ed. 1118 (1949); Van Dyk Research Corp. v. Xerox Corp., 478 F.Supp. 1268 (D.N.J.1979), aff’d, 631 F.2d 251 (3d Cir.1980), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 905, 101 S.Ct. 3029, 69 L.Ed.2d. 405 (1981)); failure to adjust projected losses to account for adverse factors other than the defendant’s conduct (Coleman Motor Co. v. Chrysler Corp., 525 F.2d 1338 (3d Cir.1975); R.S.E., Inc. v. Pennsy Supply, Inc., 523 F.Supp. 954 (M.D.Pa.1981); In re IBM Peripheral EDP Devices Antitrust Litigation, 481 F.Supp. 965 (N.D.Cal.1979), appeal docketed, No. 80-4048 (9th Cir. Jan. 31, 1980)); reliance on erroneous damage assumptions (SCM Corp. v. Xerox Corp., 463 F.Supp. 983 (D.Conn.1978), remanded for further proceedings, 599 F.2d 32 (2d Cir. 1979) (per curiam), aff’d after remand, 645 F.2d 1195 (2d Cir.1981); R.S.E., Inc.; Van Dyk Research); and the ability to have employed more particularized damage assessments (Coleman; In re IBM Peripheral EDP Devices).27 And to the extent that any of these cases can be read as contradicting the non-disaggregation rule of Spray-Rite, we should follow the law of this circuit.
I would hold that there is sufficient evidence to support a finding of a direct causal link between the damages actually awarded and the specific wrongful acts as a whole. Also, I would hold that the damages which were in fact proven were not speculative and were impossible to prove with further *1192specificity. I would thus reject AT & T’s disaggregation argument. A defendant whose wrongful conduct has rendered unreasonably difficult or impossible the ascertainment of the exact damage amount suffered by a plaintiff may not be heard to complain of or benefit from the fact that the damages cannot be measured with exactness and precision.28 Eastman Kodak Co. v. Southern Photo Materials Co., 273 U.S. 359, 379, 47 S.Ct. 400, 405, 71 L.Ed. 684 (1927); Spray-Rite, 684 F.2d at 1242, 1243; Pacific Coast Agricultural Export Association v. Sunkist Growers, Inc., 526 F.2d 1196, 1207 (9th Cir.1975), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 959, 96 S.Ct. 1741, 48 L.Ed.2d 204 (1976); Fey v. Walston & Co., Inc., 493 F.2d 1036, 1055 (7th Cir.1974); Hobart Brothers Co. v. Malcolm T. Gilliland, Inc., 471 F.2d 894, 903 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 412 U.S. 923, 93 S.Ct. 2736, 37 L.Ed.2d 150 (1973). MCI’s damage proof, while not disaggregated, provided a sufficiently just and reasonable estimate of total damages based upon relevant data and thus had a rational basis in the circumstances of this case that did not require the jury to speculate in order to reach a specified dollar figure. Mishawaka, 616 F.2d at 987.
B. Assumptions
The majority finds that several assumptions underlying MCFs Lost Profits Study were inadequately supported, and so it requires a remand for a new trial on damages. Chiefly, the majority holds that the evidence does not support the Study’s assumption concerning the amount of revenue MCI could have expected to generate.
Evidence of an antitrust plaintiff’s damages can be predicated upon assumptions if the assumptions rest upon an adequate base and are probative of the damage caused by the defendant. Hobart Brothers Co. v. Malcolm T. Gilliland Inc., 471 F.2d 894, 902 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 412 U.S. 923, 93 S.Ct. 2736, 37 L.Ed.2d 150 (1973); Locklin v. Day-Glo Color Corp., 429 F.2d 873, 879 (7th Cir.1970), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 1020, 91 S.Ct. 582, 584, 27 L.Ed.2d 632 (1971); Herman Schwabe, Inc. v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 297 F.2d 906, 911-13 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 369 U.S. 865, 82 S.Ct. 1031, 8 L.Ed.2d 85 (1962). It is the plaintiff’s burden to support the assumptions within its damage proof and not the defendant’s to disprove them. Van Dyk Research Corp. v. Xerox Corp., 478 F.Supp. 1268, 1327-28 (D.N.J.1979), aff’d, 631 F.2d 251 (3d Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 905, 101 S.Ct. 3029, 69 L.Ed.2d 405 (1981).
I believe that the assumptions within the Study were reasonable and rested upon an adequate base. The assumptions were unquestionably open to challenge, and AT & T strongly challenged them before the jury and in certain motions before the district court. The assumptions possessed enough probative value to have been presented to the jury, were supported by sufficient evidence, and reflected reasoned judgments based upon competent evidence, as was required in the instruction given by Judge Grady. The assumptions thus provide an adequate basis for the jury’s verdict. See Greene v. General Foods Corp., 517 F.2d 635, 662, 666 n. 23 (5th Cir.1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 942, 96 S.Ct. 1409, 47 L.Ed.2d 348 (1976) (verdict upheld where defendant made no offer of clearly superior assumptions that would yield more accurate results when applied to the available data, even if plaintiff’s assumptions were not “the only permissible ones or even the preferable ones”).
1. The Revenue Assumption
The lost profits study assumed that after an initial period of earning revenues from *1193private line service at $1.10 per circuit mile per month, and later $1.00 per circuit mile per month, MCI would have earned $.85 per circuit mile per month in revenues from the fourth quarter of 1976 through 1984. The lost profits study incorporated this two-step reduction to account for possible increased competition from other new entrants into the market.
MCI presented documentary evidence as well as testimony from the study’s author to support the $.85 assumption.29 The author testified that the $.85 figure represented the rate per circuit mile per month that MCI assumed it would have earned absent AT & T’s unlawful practices. He said during cross-examination that he considered several factors to arrive at the figure. In addition to having lowered the figure to reflect increased competition from later entrants, he indicated that $.85 was selected on the basis of other factors, including his accumulated knowledge from working within the industry, a comparison of the figure with other competitors’ rates, and a review of how the rate might be structured and what rate the market would accept. The MCI controller also testified at the time of trial to the reasonableness of the $.85 figure.
MCI also proffered an exhibit with related testimony that indicated MCI’s assumed $.85 rate, as adjusted, was fully competitive with comparable AT & T private line rates. This exhibit was a formal AT & T submission in March 1977 to the FCC requesting permission to revise certain rates as of June 1977. It indicated that, based upon actual 1976 data, the average revenue rate per circuit mile per month for most of AT & T’s interstate private line services was $1.26. This bolstered MCI’s contention that its lesser revenue expectations were reasonable.
The majority questions the reasonableness of the revenue assumption, its foundation, and its probativeness on several grounds, suggesting that the record demonstrates that the $.85 figure was incorrect and unreasonable. Chiefly, the majority concludes that AT & T’s own private line rates, especially for Telpak service, were so low as to render the $.85 rate unreasonably high. It argues that since MCI’s costs for rendering its private line service exceeded the revenue rates which AT & T was obtaining for Telpak, MCI could not possibly compete profitably for this business.
The record indicates, however, that the $.85 assumption was equal to or lower than AT '& T’s Telpak rates rather than significantly higher. None of the Telpak figures AT & T uses for comparison with MCI’s revenue assumption take into account all the various factors that the record indicates must be considered. AT & T and MCI, for example, use different mileage bases to compute their revenue returns per circuit mile. MCI’s use of airline miles rather than AT & T’s calculations based on its billing mileage means that AT & T’s revenue figures must be increased by about nineteen percent in order to convert them for meaningful comparison. Moreover, the customer must pay service terminal charges at each end of the long distance lines used for Tel-pak, but the figures AT & T cites as representative of its revenues do not include those charges. Those charges (as used in AT & T’s and MCI’s examples) can range from $.18 (for a 500 mile circuit bundle) to *1194$.29 (for a 306 mile circuit bundle) per circuit mile per month. Further, AT & T increased its Telpak rates by eight percent in the two years after 1974, the year upon which MCI bases much of its revenue evidence. Additionally, although the revenue per circuit that AT & T receives from each Telpak customer may be computed by dividing the bundle of circuits the customer leases by the total amount paid, that is not the only manner of revenue computation. A Telpak customer must lease an entire Tel-pak bundle, even if it will be using fewer than all the circuits leased. The percentage of circuits actually used by a customer is called a “fill factor.” The average fill factor for all Telpak users was about seventy-five percent. An AT & T expert testified that fill factors give AT & T “a practical way to determine” AT & T’s average revenues per Telpak circuit mile. Just as the customer who uses less than all of its leased circuits effectively pays a higher cost per circuit mile for Telpak, AT & T’s comparable revenues are higher when the fill factor is taken into account.
After making the adjustments .described above, AT & T’s Telpak revenue per circuit mile emerges as about $.89, and probably as high as $.93. These figures, being above MCI’s assumption of $.85, demonstrate that MCI could compete with AT & T for Telpak customers without compromising the expected $.85 revenue figure for all MCI private line service.
Moreover, testimony of MCI’s president and an MCI senior vice president revealed that MCI also intended to seek smaller private line customers who either had been using Telpak C or no private line services whatsoever. The provision of service to smaller users produces more revenue per circuit mile. If these goals were in fact achieved, it would have ensured that MCI could have sustained the $.85 rate. The figures also reveal that MCI’s $.85 revenue assumption was competitive when contrasted with AT & T’s overall rate, which definitely would have been higher than the average Telpak rate as Telpak was but one service which was included in AT & T’s total rate of $1.21 or $1.26.
The majority also contends that the jury’s special finding that Telpak was not preda-torily priced is inconsistent with the assumption that MCI could earn an overall revenue of $.85 per circuit mile per month. With Telpak priced lawfully at $.50 per mile per month (a figure the majority assumes the jury approved as lawful since it was the revenue figure MCI argued was proper), MCI would then have to match that rate in order to compete for bulk users, thereby driving down the overall revenue figure to something considerably below $.85.
By claiming that MCI must match Tel-pak’s lower figure, the majority assumes that Telpak’s lower figure is the proper one for comparison when actually that figure must be adjusted upward (to account for the detour ratio, fill factors, etc.) to be relevant for purposes of comparison with MCI’s service.30 As our foregoing brief analysis shows, the jury could reasonably conclude that MCI must compete with a comparable Telpak rate of $.87 or $.89, not $.50.
In sum, the parties presented exhaustive evidence on the reasonableness and proba-tiveness of the $.85 assumption, and argued fully before the jury the merits and pitfalls of that evidence. MCI proffered sufficient proof to support the assumption and to permit the district court, as well as an appellate court, to conclude that the revenue assumption rested upon an adequate base. Nor is the Telpak finding inconsistent with the $.85 assumption. Moreover, I fear that the majority’s detailed reevalua*1195tion of the conflicting evidence which was aired and argued before the jury sets an undesirable precedent for appellate courts to freely pick and choose among dissonant, but equally credible, versions of the truth. Determination of the actual figure and its use was, in my view, properly left for jury resolution.
To this extent, I respectfully dissent.
APPENDIX
In this appendix we reprint the jury instructions of the court dealing with the antitrust laws as well as reproduce the special verdict used in this case. We present these materials for reference purposes only and do not mean to suggest any implicit approval, or disapproval, of either the instructions or the special verdict.
A. JURY INSTRUCTIONS
Number As Given
I. General Instructions (OMITTED)
1. General Duties of Jury
2. Statements and Arguments of Lawyers
3. Objections by Lawyers
4. Questions by Court
5. Credibility of Witnesses
6. Impeachment of Witnesses
7. Weight of the Evidence
8. Circumstantial Evidence
9. Stipulations
10. Depositions — Use as Evidence
11. Corporation Can Act Only Through Agents
12. AT&T — a Single Unitary Enterprise
II. Antitrust Laws
13. Purpose of the Sherman Act
14. General Purpose of the Antitrust laws
15. Private Actions Under the Antitrust Laws
16. Violations of Communications Act are Not Violations of Sherman Act
III. Complaint in this Case
17. Outline of the Complaint in this Case
A. Monopolization
18. Burden of Proof
19. The Offense of Monopolization
20. Relevant Market
21. Monopoly Power
22. Willfully Maintaining the Monopoly
23. Plaintiffs’ Maintenance of Monopoly Charge
24. Competition by a Monopolist is Not Unlawful
25. Regulation Affecting Monopoly Power in the Relevant Market
26. Essential Facility Doctrine
27. FX and CCSA
28. Specialized Common Carriers Decision
29. Tying of Local and Intercity Channels
30. Interference with Customers
31. Discriminatory Interconnections Compared to Western Union
32. Interconnection for Multipoint Service
33. Interconnection beyond a Defined Distance from Plaintiffs’ Terminals
34. The Level of Charges for Local Facilities
35. Inappropriate or Inefficient Interconnections
36. Late or Faulty Installations
37. Negotiations in Bad Faith
38. State Tariff Filings
*119639. Interference with Financing
40. Predatory Pricing
41. Telpak
42. Hi-Lo
43. Pre-announcement of Hi-Lo
44. Course of Conduct
45. Injury to Plaintiffs’ Business or Property
46. Proximate Cause (OMITTED)
47. Burden of Proof on Monopolization Charge
B. Attempt to Monopolize (OMITTED)
48. The Attempt to Monopolize Charge
49. First Element: Specific Intent
50. Second Element: Predatory Conduct
51. Third Element: Dangerous Probability of Success
52. Fourth Element: Injury to Plaintiffs
53. Intent
C. Damages
54. Damages
55. Lost Profits May Not be Based on Conjecture
56. Plaintiffs have a Duty to Mitigate Damages
57. Deliberations (OMITTED)
B. SPECIAL VERDICT
II. ANTITRUST LAWS
13. Purpose of the Sherman Act
This case involves alleged violations of a federal law known as the Sherman Antitrust Act. The pertinent section of the Act reads as follows:
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 [to have violated the law]....
The purpose of the Sherman Act is to preserve and advance our system of free, competitive enterprise and to prevent the accomplishment or deliberate maintenance of a monopoly in any business or industry. The Sherman Act rests on the premise that our economy and the interests of consumers are best served by the unrestricted interaction of competitive forces. However, the application of the Sherman Act is modified to some extent in industries subject to public utility regulation, such as the telecommunications industry involved in this case, where other federal statutes are involved. I will explain this modification later in these instructions.
14. General Purpose of the Antitrust Laws
While the general purpose of the antitrust laws is to protect, encourage and foster competition as the rule of trade for the American economy, these laws were not enacted to protect particular competitors. In the normal course of free and vigorous competition, it is expected that some businesses will suffer losses and some will enjoy success. It is expected that this will occur because some will provide better services, introduce better or cheaper products or otherwise better serve the public. This is an accepted and desirable result. The antitrust laws do not seek to shield competitors from the risks or effects of lawful, vigorous competition, to penalize successful competitors, to equalize differences between particular competitors or to shackle the competitive process, and you should not apply those laws to the issues in this case to achieve any such result.
15. Private Actions Under the Antitrust Laws
The lawsuit filed by MCI in this case is a private civil action. A business may file a *1197private civil action claiming that a competitor has violated the antitrust laws and has injured it or threatened to injure it by that violation. Private antitrust actions are a vital means of enforcing the antitrust laws, because damage judgments against persons who violate the antitrust laws serve to deter others from violating the law. Thus, a private civil action protects the public as well as the particular business injured by the forbidden practices. The complaint filed by MCI in this case is such an action.
16. Violations of Communications Act are Not Violations of Sherman Act
You have heard evidence that certain of AT & T’s conduct at issue in this case — in particular the Hi-Lo tariff and AT & T’s refusal to provide connections for FX and CCSA — was the subject of FCC rulings which found that conduct to be in violation of particular provisions of the Communications Act. These FCC rulings do not prove that AT & T violated the antitrust laws. The FCC is not empowered to, and does not, determine whether the antitrust laws have been violated. You must make your own determination of whether AT & T has violated the antitrust laws by any of its conduct.
III. COMPLAINT IN THIS CASE
17. Outline of the Complaint in this Case
Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act makes it illegal for a business to monopolize, or to attempt or conspire to monopolize, any part of trade or commerce in the United States. Section 2 prohibits a monopolist from willfully misusing its monopoly power to maintain its monopoly position. MCI’s complaint has two counts or parts based on Section 2 of the Sherman Act.
In Count I, MCI claims that American Telephone and Telegraph Company has monopolized a part of trade or commerce referred to in the complaint as the business and data communication services market.
In Count II, MCI claims that American Telephone and Telegraph Company attempted to monopolize that market.
MCI also alleges that AT & T’s activities have caused damage to MCI’s business and property.
A. MONOPOLIZATION
18. Burden of Proof
Whenever I say that a party has the burden of proof on any proposition, or that a party must prove something, or show or establish something, or use the expression “if you find,” or “if you decide,” I mean you must be persuaded, considering all the evidence in the case, that the proposition is more probably true than not true. In addition, wherever a particular claim contains a number of different elements or propositions, the party with the burden of proof must persuade you on each element or proposition making up that claim.
Unless I tell you otherwise, plaintiffs have the burden of proof on each of the propositions relating to each allegation or claim they have advanced during the trial of this case.
19. The Offense of Monopolization
MCI’s principal claim, which I will discuss first, is monopolization. There are four essential elements which MCI has the burden of proving in order to establish its claim of monopolization.
First: MCI must prove that business and data communication services constitute a market of economic significance in the sense that the products or services in that market are reasonably interchangeable with each other, taking into account the price, quality and function of the products or services. This is called a relevant market.
Second: MCI must prove that AT & T possessed monopoly power in the relevant market.
Third: MCI must prove that AT & T willfully maintained its monopoly by doing one or more of the anti-competitive acts complained of by MCI. This is called monopolizing the relevant market.
Fourth: MCI must prove that MCI was injured in its business or property as a *1198proximate result of AT & T’s monopolization of the relevant market.
I will now describe each of these four elements in greater detail.
20. Relevant Market
In deciding whether MCI has shown a “relevant market,” you must consider two issues: (1) what are the services or products in the relevant market and (2) what is the geographic scope of the relevant market.
A relevant market contains services which consumers regard as reasonably good substitutes for each other and to which they will readily turn as alternatives. The geographic scope of the relevant market is the area in which the firms involved do business and the area from which they draw customers.
MCI asserts that intercity business and data communication services in the United States during the period from 1969 through mid-1975 was a relevant market. MCI claims that the services in the market were intercity business and data communication services, and that the geographic scope of the market was nationwide. This market is said to consist of telecommunications services ordinarily known as private-line services and other services which can be used instead of private-line services, such as WATS and business long-distance service.
In determining whether these services did constitute a specific relevant market, you may consider whether the services offered by MCI through mid-1975 were marketed specifically to business and governmental users rather than to the general public; whether these services were marketed among distant points rather than locally; whether the services were marketed both for the transmission of voice and for the transmission of computer data; whether the types of services marketed, including various private-line services and AT & T’s WATS and business MTS services, were regarded by consumers as reasonably interchangeable with each other; and whether the sales of one service marketed to these users were reasonably responsive to price changes of other such services.
Similarly, in determining whether the relevant geographic market was nationwide, you may consider whether the business of providing the services was operated or sought to be operated on a national level by MCI, AT & T, or others; whether the planning for these services was national in scope; whether the prices, rates, and terms here involved were often based on a national schedule; and whether some of the customers for these services were large businesses with need for services in many states.
Within a relevant market there may be “relevant sub-markets,” which themselves may be monopolized. Thus, if you find that business and data communication services did not constitute a relevant market, you must consider whether these services or any portion of them constitute a relevant sub-market. In other words, a market which would be a relevant market but for the fact that it is a part of a larger market may nevertheless be a relevant submarket.
The existence of a relevant submarket may be determined by examining such practical indications as industry or public recognition of the submarket as a separate economic entity; the services’ peculiar characteristics and uses; distinct customers; distinct prices; or sensitivity to price changes. Any need to have a relevant market is fully satisfied by proof of a relevant submarket.
21. Monopoly Power
Another one of the four essential elements that MCI must show to establish AT & T’s monopolization is that AT & T had monopoly power in the relevant market. Monopoly power is the economic power to exclude or limit entry of competitors into the relevant market or to control prices in the relevant market.
MCI claims that AT & T had monopoly power in the relevant market from 1969 through mid-1975 by virtue of AT & T’s control over the AT & T-owned local telephone companies in most of the areas MCI sought to serve.
*1199If you find that the business and data communication services market is a relevant market or submarket, that AT & T had control of the local telephone facilities, and that this control gave AT & T the power to exclude MCI or limit its entry into the market or to control prices from 1969 through mid-1975, you may conclude that MCI has proved the existence of AT & T’s monopoly power.
MCI also claims that AT & T had monopoly power in the relevant market from 1969 through mid-1975 by reason of AT & T’s large share of the market. If you find that AT & T had at least 75% of the revenues in the relevant market from 1969 through mid-1975, you may, but need not, infer from that fact that AT & T had monopoly power. However, you should consider all of the evidence on the point before drawing any such inference from the fact of market share.
You may find that AT & T had the power to exclude competitors or limit entry or to control prices without actually using the power or without using it effectively. In other words, in considering this element of monopoly power, the question for you to decide is whether AT & T had monopoly power, not whether it used the power effectively or used it at all.
Next I will instruct you about the third element, the use of monopoly power.
22. Willfully Maintaining the Monopoly
As the third essential element of its case, MCI claims that between 1969 and mid-1975 AT & T willfully maintained its monopoly power in the relevant market by engaging in certain practices which MCI claims to have been anticompetitive and to have had the effect of keeping MCI out of the market or unfairly handicapping MCI’s ability to compete with AT & T.
These practices were allegedly as follows:
(1) AT & T refused to interconnect local telephone company facilities to allow MCI to offer FX and CCSA;
(2) AT & T refused to provide interconnections for multipoint service or service outside of a limited distance from MCI’s terminals;
(3) For the interconnections it did provide AT & T charged unreasonable prices that were higher than AT & T charged Western Union for the same types of interconnections;
(4) AT & T failed to negotiate for interconnections in good faith and failed to provide efficient or appropriate equipment for interconnections;
(5) AT & T interfered with MCI’s relationships with its customers;
(6) AT & T tied its local service to long distance private-line service and offered them only as a package;
(7) AT & T announced its Hi-Lo prices for private-line services before it was ready to put the changes into effect and then lowered the prices at a time and to levels which were predatory; and
(8) AT & T continued to offer the Telpak discount at below-cost levels and in ways that prevented MCI from competing fairly for customers.
23. Plaintiffs’ Maintenance of Monopoly Charge
MCI is not challenging the acquisition of any monopoly which AT & T may have had in the relevant market prior to MCI’s entry. Instead, MCI claims that AT & T sought to maintain its monopoly position after the Federal Communications Commission permitted MCI entry into the market. Therefore, the principal issue which you must decide is whether AT & T acted unlawfully to maintain a monopoly in the relevant market following MCI’s entry. In reaching that decision, however, you should not draw any inference that AT & T acted wrongfully from the fact that it provided substantially all of the service in the relevant market at the time of MCI’s entry.
24. Competition by a Monopolist is Not Unlawful
Vigorous competition on the merits of the service or product is exactly what the Sherman Act was enacted to encourage. Therefore the Sherman Act allows a regulated *1200firm with monopoly power to compete vigorously whenever it may be faced with competition. So long as defendant’s competitive responses to plaintiffs were based on legitimate business decisions and on the merits of defendant’s services, defendant cannot be found to have unlawfully maintained a monopoly. This is so even if plaintiffs were hurt by the competition and defendant sought to retain as much of its business as possible.
25. Regulation Affecting Monopoly Power in the Relevant Market
In determining whether AT & T possessed monopoly power in the relevant market, you may consider the effect of the FCC’s exercise of regulatory authority over prices and entry, including interconnection. Similarly, you may consider the effect of the exercise by state regulatory agencies of regulatory authority over prices and entry in connection with the provision of local services and facilities. That AT & T may have had the largest share or the entire share of the telephone business in certain areas would not be sufficient to establish that AT & T possessed monopoly power if in fact regulation by regulatory agencies prevented AT & T from having the power to restrict entry or control prices. On the other hand, if the regulation was not sufficient to prevent AT & T from having the power to restrict entry or control prices, you could find that AT & T had monopoly power even though it is a regulated enterprise.
26. Essential Facility Doctrine
I will now discuss these specific charges of anti-competitive conduct MCI makes against AT & T. A number of these charges relate to interconnection sought by MCI from AT & T through the AT & T operating companies.
Generally, the law recognizes the right of each of us to use our property as we see fit. However, the antitrust laws make an exception to this property right in certain situations. If a business holds a monopoly of some essential facility that other businesses need in order to compete, and if the other businesses cannot reasonably duplicate this essential facility, then the business that controls the facility may be required to make that facility available to its competitors on a fair and reasonable basis. The purpose of this requirement is to promote competition. However, as I will subsequently instruct you, any such requirement is qualified where, as in this case, the terms under which those facilities are provided are subject to regulation by the FCC and state regulatory agencies.
MCI claims that the facilities of AT & T’s local operating companies are essential facilities, and that AT & T refused to make interconnection with these facilities available to MCI on a reasonable basis.
AT & T’s position is that it agreed to provide MCI with facilities and interconnections it believed in good faith MCI was entitled to receive on reasonable terms and conditions. With respect to those facilities and interconnections which AT & T did not provide, its position is that its failure to do so was based upon a good faith belief that it would have violated established regulatory policies and therefore that it acted reasonably in all the circumstances.
27. FX and CCSA
I will now explain to you the law in relation to the FX and CCSA issue.
The threshold determination you should make on this issue is whether the Specialized Common Carriers decision ordered AT & T to provide FX and CCSA interconnections to MCI. The question here is whether the decision, either by express language or by what is reasonably apparent from the language which was used, ordered AT & T to make those interconnections. Your further analysis of the problem depends upon how you answer this first question.
If you find that the decision did order AT & T to provide the interconnections, then you must determine whether AT & T knew or had good reason to believe that the decision constituted such an order. If you find that AT & T did know or had good reason *1201to believe they had been ordered to provide the interconnections, then, in this event, you should find that AT & T was guilty of an anti-competitive practice in refusing to provide the connections.
If you do not find that the Specialized Common Carriers decision ordered AT & T to provide FX and CCSA interconnections, this does not necessarily mean that AT & T was free of anti-competitive conduct in failing to provide them. This is because plaintiffs’ entitlement to these connections does not depend upon receiving specific authorization from the FCC or upon AT & T’s being specifically ordered by the FCC to provide them. Having received certificates of convenience and necessity for microwave facilities, MCI was entitled under the Communications Act to provide any service within the technical capacity of those facilities unless the FCC imposed limits on the authority conferred by the certificates. AT & T contends in this trial that it reasonably believed the Specialized Common Carriers decision did constitute a limitation on MCI’s authority, such that MCI was not authorized to provide FX and CCSA service. It was decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in the Execunet case in 1977, that the Specialized Common Carriers decision did not constitute a limitation on MCI’s authority, regardless of what the FCC’s intention may have been, since no hearing was held to determine whether the public convenience and necessity required any limitation. The Court of Appeals decision in Execunet did not address the question of FX and CCSA, but the holding of the case that the Specialized Common Carriers proceeding was ineffective to limit MCI’s authority is nonetheless applicable to our analysis of the FX and CCSA question. I instruct you as a matter of law, therefore, that at the time MCI requested FX and CCSA interconnections it was authorized to render those services and AT & T was obligated under the Communications Act to provide the interconnections.
MCI must prove more, however, than the fact that AT & T refused to provide the interconnections. As you know, AT & T contends that it refused to provide the connections because it believed that it had not been ordered to do so, that MCI was not authorized to provide the service, and that it would have violated established regulatory policies for MCI to receive the connections. If AT & T refused the interconnections because of such reasons, believing in good faith that they justified the refusal, then the refusal to provide the interconnections was not anti-competitive conduct and cannot be considered conduct engaged in for the purpose of maintaining a monopoly.
MCI has the burden of proving that in refusing the FX and CCSA interconnections AT & T acted with anti-competitive intent, for the purpose of maintaining a monopoly, rather than for what it in good faith regarded as legitimate reasons.
28. Specialized Common Carriers Decision
What the Specialized Common Carriers decision meant is to be determined by its language and what is reasonably implied by that language, considering the historical context and all of the facts and circumstances known to the parties at the time. The intent of the Commission at the time is relevant, but only to the extent that it found expression in the decision or was reasonably inferable from the decision and other facts known to the parties at the time.
29. Tying of Local and Intercity Channels
The law prohibits a business from tying the sale of a product over which it- has monopoly power to the sale of another of its products for which there is competition. MCI contends that customers who used AT & T’s local telephone service were forced to use AT & T’s long-distance service if they wanted services requiring FX and CCSA interconnections. Thus, MCI claims that AT & T engaged in such tying.
There are several requirements for determining whether an unlawful tie-in exists under the antitrust laws: first, there must be two distinct facilities or services involved; second, the defendant must have monopoly power over one product or ser*1202vice, known as the tying product or service; and third, there must be no reasonable justification for offering the products or services together other than an intent to maintain monopoly power in the relevant market.
If you find that AT & T possessed monopoly power over the market for local telephone service within one or more metropolitan areas, and that AT & T, without justification, used that local monopoly power to exclude MCI from the relevant market by tying its long-distance service to the local service, then you may find in favor of MCI on this claim.
30. Interference with Customers
MCI claims that AT & T specifically interfered with MCI's customers by disconnecting PX, CCSA, and other lines in April of 1974. If you find that AT & T did not believe it was acting lawfully in disconnecting these lines and disconnected them for the purpose of keeping MCI out of the market or unfairly limiting its ability to compete with AT & T, you may find in favor of MCI on this claim.
This claim involves the period between April 16, 1974 and April 24, 1974. During that period, AT & T disconnected some of MCI’s customers who had obtained interconnection for FX, CCSA and outside the local distribution area services pursuant to a preliminary injunction issued by the federal district court in Philadelphia. A preliminary injunction is an equitable remedy sometimes granted by the courts until the merits of the underlying controversy can be fully addressed. As such, the issuance of such an injunction should not be construed by you as an indication that plaintiffs were held by a court of law to be permanently entitled to the interconnections at issue in this proceeding. This is illustrated by the order of the Court of Appeals which vacated that injunction and held that there was sufficient uncertainty about the dispute between the parties on the FX and CCSA question that the dispute should be decided by the Federal Communications Commission which was then hearing the matter. At the same time you should understand that the Court of Appeals order vacating the injunctions said nothing about disconnecting these customers.
31. Discriminatory Interconnections Compared to Western Union
For MCI to prevail on its claim that it was provided interconnections by AT & T in a discriminatory manner compared to Western Union, MCI must prove that AT & T unreasonably discriminated against MCI with the intent of maintaining a monopoly in the relevant market. MCI’s position on this claim is that AT & T acted unreasonably in charging MCI a higher price for local facilities than AT & T charged Western Union. MCI also claims that AT & T unreasonably refused to provide MCI services under conditions similar to those under which it provided them to Western Union. AT & T claims there were valid business and regulatory reasons for any difference in treatment.
In order to establish this claim, MCI must show five elements.
The first element is that Western Union was a significant competitor in the relevant market during the period between 1972 and 1975.
The second element is that Western Union was given more favorable treatment than MCI concerning similar facilities.
The third element is that AT & T did not make reasonable efforts to treat MCI the same as Western Union. You have heard conflicting evidence concerning the contractual relationship between Western Union and AT & T, efforts to renegotiate the Western Union contract and certain actions of the FCC in relation to those matters. Unless you find that defendant did not take reasonable steps to provide facilities to Western Union and plaintiffs on the same basis, you must find for the defendant on this claim.
The fourth element of this claim is that the difference in treatment involved facilities of the same or substantially equivalent cost. Plaintiffs must show that the differ*1203ence in price or other treatment was not justified by a difference in AT & T’s cost or by other factors in the event the facilities were different.
Finally, if MCI acted unreasonably to prevent AT & T from negotiating an agreement with Western Union that would have eliminated any difference in treatment between the two, you may not find that any difference in treatment that might have existed violated the antitrust laws.
32. Interconnection for Multipoint Service
MCI claims that AT & T denied it interconnection for multipoint service. According to the evidence, multipoint interconnection involved a situation where a customer ordered an AT & T private line between City A and City B and an MCI private line between City B and City C, and MCI sought an interconnection between its terminal and the AT & T terminal so that the customer could obtain service between City A and City C. To prevail upon its claim of denials of multipoint service interconnections, MCI must prove that AT & T unreasonably denied those interconnections with the intent of maintaining a monopoly in the relevant market rather than for legitimate business reasons.
33. Interconnection beyond a Defined Distance from Plaintiffs’ Terminals
For MCI to prevail upon its claim of denials of interconnection beyond a defined distance from its terminals, MCI must establish that AT & T denied MCI those interconnections with the intent of maintaining a monopoly in the relevant market. Essentially, MCI’s charge is that AT & T unreasonably refused to provide MCI with local distribution facilities beyond a defined geographic area, which MCI claims were needed to connect their terminals in the cities in which they were operating with their customers in those cities.
You may consider the nature of any guidance afforded to defendant by the FCC in its Specialized Common Carriers decision with respect to the kinds of local facilities to be provided. In that decision, the FCC indicated that local facilities should be offered to the plaintiffs and other new entrants in the large cities, but did not specify what geographical limitations were involved in local services. Under no interpretation of that decision would AT & T have been obligated to provide geographical unlimited local facilities to plaintiffs.
You must decide whether the geographical limits imposed by AT & T were reasonable and whether AT & T, in setting the limits it did, acted with an intent to maintain its monopoly and to hinder plaintiffs’ entry into the relevant market.
34. The Level of Charges for Local Facilities
Aside from its claim that it was discriminated against in relation to Western Union, MCI also claims that the level of charges imposed by AT & T for the local facilities provided to MCI was unreasonably high. To prevail upon this claim, MCI must establish that AT & T charged it unreasonably high prices for local facilities with the intent of maintaining a monopoly in the relevant market. An unreasonably high price is one that is excessive in relation to the cost of providing the service.
35. Inappropriate or Inefficient Interconnections
For plaintiffs to prevail on their claim that they were provided with inefficient or otherwise inappropriate equipment and procedures for interconnections, plaintiffs must establish that defendant knowingly furnished inefficient or inappropriate services or equipment with the intent of maintaining a monopoly in the relevant market. The basic controversy here concerns the equipment used by the Bell operating companies to interconnect with plaintiffs, including such things as connector blocks and equipment interfaces, the various kinds of signaling used by the Bell operating companies, the configuration of certain interconnections, such as those for Central Office Centrex Service, the provision of engineering information and the procedures for coordination, installation, testing, and repairs.
*120436. Late or Faulty Installations
During the presentation of plaintiffs’ case, evidence was presented relating to the actions of certain employees of defendant which resulted in such things as delayed installations, or improperly installed facilities, from which plaintiffs claim a deliberate pattern of anti-competitive conduct can be inferred. If you find that these things occurred, you should view them in the context of the overall number of transactions between the parties during the relevant time period. Plaintiffs have the burden of proving that these actions reflected a deliberate policy made and enforced by defendant’s officers.
37. Negotiations in Bad Faith
Plaintiffs claim that at various times between 1971 and 1973 defendant pursued a deliberate policy of bad faith negotiations. To prevail upon this claim, plaintiffs must establish that defendant negotiated in bad faith for purposes of delaying plaintiffs’ entry into the market and with the intent of maintaining a monopoly in the relevant market.
38. State Tariff Filings
MCI claims that the filing by AT & T operating companies of tariffs with state regulatory agencies in the fall of 1973, offering local facilities to plaintiffs, Western Union and all other specialized carriers on the same terms and conditions, violated the antitrust laws. In order to sustain this claim MCI must prove by clear and convincing evidence that AT & T did not believe that the state agencies had jurisdiction and that the tariffs were filed in bad faith for the purpose of hindering and delaying MCI’s efforts to compete. Clear and convincing evidence means evidence that compels your belief and leaves little doubt that a particular proposition is true.
39. Interference with Financing
Plaintiffs claim that a Bell System employee spoke to a banker about new entry and competition in the telecommunications industry with the intent of interfering with plaintiffs’ ability to obtain financing. Plaintiffs allege that this effort was a willful act by defendant committed in an effort to maintain its monopoly. In order for plaintiffs to prevail on this claim, plaintiffs must prove that the incident with the banker was a deliberate effort to delay and hinder plaintiffs’ entry into the market by interfering with its financing.
40. Predatory Pricing
Because price reductions tend to benefit consumers, the antitrust laws do not under all circumstances prohibit a monopolist from reducing its prices. But because the monopolist has the power to injure competition and competitors by reducing prices unfairly, the antitrust laws require careful review of price reductions.
For you to conclude that AT & T’s conduct in reducing prices shows willful maintenance of its monopoly, you must find that there was a special quality about AT & T’s conduct which makes it unfair or exclusionary. This is called “predatory pricing.”
One example of predatory pricing would be the monopolist who sells at a loss temporarily in order to force weaker competitors out of the market, intending to recoup his losses by raising prices again when the competition is eliminated.
41. Telpak
MCI contends that the Telpak tariff rate was below cost and was unprofitable for AT & T between 1969 and mid-1975. In order to conclude that Telpak was priced below cost, you must decide whether to compare the Telpak price to AT & T’s average costs or its marginal costs. In this trial, average costs have also been called fully distributed or embedded costs and marginal costs have also been called incremental or long-run incremental costs. In arriving at what you believe to be the true cost of providing this service, you may consider the views of experts who have testified at trial and exercise your own judgment in light of all the testimony you have heard. If you conclude that Telpak was intentionally priced below *1205what you find to be the appropriate cost between 1969 and mid-1975, you may find that Telpak was predatory. On the other hand, if plaintiff has not shown Telpak to have been priced below what you believe to be the appropriate cost standard, you should find for defendant on this issue.
42. Hi-Lo
Predatory pricing may exist when a monopolist arbitrarily lowers prices in areas where it faces competition and either raises or does not lower prices in areas where it does not face competition. MCI contends that AT & T’s choice of the “high density” routes in the Hi-Lo tariff was not based on legitimate cost differences but rather was predatory pricing intended to prevent competition by MCI and other entrants.
The test for determining whether Hi-Lo was predatory is the same as for Telpak. Again, it is a question of whether the price covered what you consider the applicable cost. If it did, you may not infer predatory intent; if it did not, you may infer predatory intent.
43. Pre-announcement of Hi-Lo
The announcement of a price reduction by a firm with monopoly power a long time before it intends to put the reduction into effect can be a predatory act. This is sometimes called pre-announcement. The reason pre-announcement can be anti-competitive is that the pre-announcement may hang over the market — that is, may prevent or discourage buyers from switching to a new competitor while they wait for the announced price reduction to go into effect.
MCI contends that AT & T announced its Hi-Lo rate reduction at least one year before AT & T intended to put it into effect and that the reason for the time interval was to discourage buyers from purchasing services from MCI. AT & T contends, on the other hand, that the time interval was reasonable and was required by applicable regulations and legitimate business considerations.
Plaintiffs have the burden of proving that the announcement of Hi-Lo was done not for legitimate reasons but for the purpose of maintaining a monopoly.
44. Course of Conduct
In considering whether AT & T has willfully maintained its monopoly power, you should not consider each distinct aspect of AT & T’s conduct in a vacuum but in the context of all AT & T’s conduct.
45. Injury to Plaintiffs’ Business or Property
The final element necessary to MCI’s proof that AT & T monopolized the relevant market is proof that AT & T’s conduct has injured MCI. What you should determine is whether MCI suffered financial or economic harm in any way which was proximately caused by AT & T’s conduct. MCI claims that it was injured by AT & T’s conduct in several ways, including its inability to serve customers; increased expenses; suspension of its construction program; and loss of revenues, profits, and opportunities for growth. If you find that any such injury was sustained and was proximately caused by AT & T’s conduct, you should conclude that MCI has made out this element of its case.
47. Burden of Proof on Monopolization Charge
On the monopolization charge in Count I of the complaint, the plaintiffs have the burden of proving each of the following propositions:
First, that the defendant had monopoly power in a relevant market;
Second, that the defendant acted, or failed or refused to act, in one of the anti-competitive ways claimed by the plaintiffs as stated to you in these instructions;
Third, that in so acting or failing or refusing to act, the defendant intended to maintain a monopoly in the relevant market;
Fourth, that the plaintiffs were injured in their business or property;
*1206Fifth, that the anti-competitive conduct of the defendant was a proximate cause of the injury to the plaintiffs’ business or property.
C. DAMAGES
54. Damages
If you find that MCI is entitled to a verdict, the law provides that MCI may be fairly compensated for all damages to its business and property which were proximately caused by AT & T’s conduct you find to be in violation of the antitrust laws.
This damage is to be measured by the amount of money which MCI would have-earned in the past and in the future if AT & T had not violated the antitrust laws, less the amount MCI has actually earned and can be expected to earn.
If you find that as a proximate result of AT & T’s violations, MCI’s earnings in the past and in the future are less than they otherwise would have been, then the present value of that difference is a proper measurement of MCI’s damages. MCI contends that the earnings called net cash flows are the proper basis for calculating damages. Another approach which the law recognizes is the net profits approach. You may adopt either approach. You should apply appropriate adjustments to allow for the fact that receiving an award of future profits now would allow MCI to earn interest on the money between now and the time in the future MCI would have earned those profits. You have heard testimony about the appropriate way to make this adjustment.
The fact that MCI’s business may have been new or unestablished does not prevent you from determining its lost earnings. In determining MCI’s lost earnings, you may consider the risks involved in the business world, the previous experience and performance of MCI’s officers in the business world, the experience of MCI in the actual conduct of its business, the competition in the market, the overall level of sales in the market, and any other factors which are relevant to the earnings MCI would reasonably have made in the past and in the .future if AT & T had not violated the antitrust laws.
MCI’s right to be fairly compensated should not be affected by any difficulty you may have in determining the precise amount of the recovery, so long as there is a reasonable basis in the evidence for your award.
MCI will have to pay taxes on any award you make. Therefore, if you decide MCI is entitled to damages you should not reduce your award on the assumption that the money will be tax-free.
Any damages you do award must have a reasonable basis in the evidence and cannot be based upon speculation, guess or conjecture.
55. Lost Profits May Not be Based on Conjecture
MCI contends that except for the alleged unlawful actions of AT & T, MCI would have constructed and operated its microwave system more rapidly and on a larger scale than it has. MCI also contends that it would have had greater profits and cash flows than it in fact experienced.
AT & T contends that MCI’s failure to construct the larger system and to construct it more rapidly was due to lawful competition from AT & T and from causes unassociated with AT & T, such as MCI’s financial difficulties, construction costs, MCI’s own inefficiencies and other matters.
The Lost Profit Study is based on a forecast of the cash flows or profits MCI alleges it would have achieved over a period of time but for AT & T’s allegedly anti-competitive conduct, compared with the cash flows and profits MCI actually achieved and has projected it will achieve over the same period. The projections are based upon a series of interrelated assumptions involving costs, revenues, length of circuits, local interconnection costs, marketing and sales efforts, the state of competition and other factors.
You have heard conflicting testimony concerning many of the basic assumptions *1207underlying these projections. As to each of these assumptions, MCI must establish that the assumptions it has made are reasonable.
The law allows a party injured by conduct which violates the Sherman Act to collect damages even if the evidence does not reflect mathematical precision in the calculations of damages. However, estimates and projections must be grounded on assumptions that reflect reasoned judgments based on competent evidence.
56. Plaintiffs have a Duty to Mitigate Damages
The law requires that a company faced with the possibility that damages may result from the business conduct of another may not merely sit back and do nothing to protect itself economically. It must protect itself by acting in a commercially reasonable and responsible manner to minimize the amount of damages incurred. This self-protection is called mitigation of damages.
AT & T contends that the FCC had the power to resolve many of the alleged unlawful acts of which MCI complains and that if MCI had filed complaints with the FCC, or formally objected to tariffs of AT & T, the FCC could have resolved any disputes over FX, CCSA, local distribution areas, the terms and conditions of furnishing local distribution facilities, and multipoint service. MCI denies this contention and argues that AT & T encouraged it to continue negotiating rather than resorting to the FCC.
Unlike the other issues about which I have instructed you, AT & T has the burden of proof on mitigation. That is, AT & T must prove that MCI did not mitigate its damages. If you find that MCI could have avoided some or all of its economic losses by complaining to the FCC and that MCI acted unreasonably in failing to complain to the FCC, you cannot award MCI the damages it could have avoided.
SPECIAL VERDICT
Your general verdict will be accompanied by answers to the following series of questions. Please bear in mind what I have told you about the elements of each of the claims made by plaintiffs against the defendant and what I have told you about the burden of proof.
Please answer the following questions “yes” or “no.”
1. Do you find that plaintiffs proved the existence of a relevant market?
Yes X
No _
If your answer is “no,” you need answer no further questions.
If your answer is “yes,” then answer Question No. 2.
2. Do you find that defendant had monopoly power in the relevant market?
Yes _X_
No _
If your answer is “no,” you should answer Question No. 3. If your answer is “yes,” skip Question No. 3 and go to Questions 4 and 5.
3. Do you find that defendant willfully attempted to monopolize the relevant market?
Yes
No
If you have answered this question and your answer is “yes,” then proceed to Questions No. 4 and 5. If you have answered the question and your answer is “no,” then you need answer no further questions.
4. In relation to the predatory pricing issue, please mark what you find to be the proper cost standard.
X_Average Costs (also called fully distributed or embedded costs)
_Marginal Costs (also called incremental or long-run incremental costs)
*12085. As to each subpart of this question, please answer “yes” or “no.” Do you find that defendant willfully maintained [or willfully attempted to maintain] its monopoly by committing any of the following acts charged in the complaint:
(a) Refusing FX and CCSA interconnections to MCI (Instructions No. 27 and 28) Yes X
No _
(b) Tying local service to AT&T long-distance service (Instruction No. 29)
Yes X
No _
(c) Interfering with MCI customers by disconnecting FX, CCSA, and other service (Instruction No. 30)
Yes X
No _
(d) Discriminating against MCI and in favor of Western Union on interconnection • (Instruction No. 31)
Yes_
No X
(e) Denying interconnection for multipoint service (Instruction No. 32)
Yes X
No _
(f) Denying interconnection beyond a defined distance from MCI’s terminals (Instruction No. 33)
Yes X
No _
(g) Charging MCI unreasonably high prices for interconnection (Instruction No. 34)
Yes_
No X
(h) Providing inappropriate or inefficient equipment or procedures for interconnection (Instruction No. 35)
Yes X
No _
(i) Late or faulty installations (Instruction No. 36)
Yes_
No X
(j) Negotiating in bad faith for an interconnection agreement (Instruction No. 37)
Yes X
No _
(k) Filing state tariffs in bad faith (Instruction No. 38)
Yes X
No _
(l) Interfering with MCI’s financing (Instruction No. 39)
Yes_
No X
(m) Predatory pricing of Telpak (Instruction No. 41)
Yes_
No X
(n) Predatory pricing of Hi-Lo (Instruction No. 42)
Yes X
No _
(o) Pre-Announcement of Hi-Lo (Instruction No. 43)
Yes X
No
*1209If you have answered all subparts of Question 5 “no,” you need answer no further questions. However, if you have answered any one or more of the subparts “yes,” then answer Question 6.
6. Do you find that plaintiffs were injured in their business or property as a proximate result of any one or more of the defendant’s acts as to which you have answered “yes” in Question No. 5?
Yes X
No _
If your answer to Question No. 6 is “yes,” then answer Question No. 7. If your answer to Question No. 6 is “no,” do not answer Question No. 7.
7. What do you find to be the monetary amount of that injury?
$ 600 million
If you completed Question No. 7, fill in the amount on this verdict form and sign it.
VERDICT IN FAVOR OF PLAINTIFFS
On the complaint, we, the jury, find for plaintiffs, MCI, and against defendant, AT&T, in the amount of:
$600.000.000.00

. This appeal has generated a record of monstrous proportions. There are 11,500 pages of transcript, pleadings, motions and other record entries, more than 1,000 exhibits, and 45 boxes of sealed evidence and deposition. The appellate briefs total nearly 600 pages, the appendices reach more than a foot in height, and in addition, there is considerable correspondence to this court from the parties. Not only do we note the diverse issues upon which the parties focus, but also obscured in the small print of over 600 footnotes in the briefs we find countless additional issues.

. For the convenience of the reader, we reiterate here brief definitions of the various cost terms used in the majority opinion and this dissent. Each term is more fully elaborated in the majority opinion, supra, at pp. 1114-1118:
Marginal cost — the additional cost of supplying a single, infinitesimally small additional unit.
Average Total Cost — the sum of all costs (fixed and variable) divided by all units of output.
Long-Run Incremental Cost. — the average cost (including fixed costs) per unit of adding *1176an entire new product or service rather than merely the last unit of output.
Fully Distributed Cost — in the case of a mul-tiproduct firm, the average additional total cost per unit of adding an entire new product or service, including an aliquot portion of the entire firm’s embedded or historical costs.
The majority agrees that fully distributed cost and long-run incremental cost are merely variant definitions of average total cost, but argues that fully distributed cost is too “arbitrary” a measure of the latter. Supra, at pp. 1116-1117.

. That the relevant jury instruction only permitted but did not compel a finding of liability if Hi-Lo prices were under fully distributed cost is clear from the face of its text: “If [prices fall below FDC], you may infer predatory intent.” App. 1205 (emphasis added).
My first impression was that Judge Grady had clearly committed error by permitting the jury to decide for itself a matter which was the court’s responsibility as a matter of law. After becoming more involved in this case I became less sure because the factual circumstances influence the choice of the test to be applied and *1177fact selection is a jury function. It was an interesting experiment to permit the jury to determine, after the various approaches were explained to them, how best to determine predatory pricing in the unique circumstances of this case. The jury made what I consider to be an appropriate choice. I would not sanction this method generally, but it did no harm here.

. The majority moderates the harshness of its rule somewhat by holding that, in certain very limited cases, non-cost evidence may be considered. Supra, at p. 1123, n. 59. But the majority also states that such evidence may not form the basis for an inference of predatory intent unless price is below long-run incremental cost. Thus, while the majority would in narrow circumstances permit direct non-cost proof of predatory intent (e.g. statements by a defendant’s managers outlining a strategy to inflict damage upon and eliminate a rival through activities other than competition on the merits), a restrictive reading would suggest that proof of unlawful intent through indirect evidence (e.g. internal firm cost and revenue patterns) would not be alone sufficient to establish liability. If such a restrictive reading is correct, then I believe the majority’s position results in an unnecessary and unrealistic limitation upon the predation inquiry. As a practical matter I believe it will be a difficult rule for the district judge to administer with any certainty.

. Throughout the trial and on appeal both sides argued that AT & T’s liability for predatory pricing depended on whether a marginal or average total cost standard was applicable. As an initial matter, therefore, I question the advisability of an appellate court undertaking sua sponte a complicated theoretical redefinition of economic terms, as appears to have been done in this case, especially where such a redefinition works to deny recovery to a plaintiff whose cost standard was the only one professed at trial to be consistent with the basic measure adopted by the majority, i.e. average total cost.

. R. Hofstadter, “What Happened to the Antitrust Movement?” in The Business Establishment 113, 149 (E. Cheit, ed. 1964).

. 21 Cong.Rec. 2457 (1890). See also Letwin, Congress and the Sherman Antitrust Laws: 1887-1890, 23 U.Chi.L.Rev. 221 (1955) (tracing political history of antitrust movement).

. See Pitofsky, The Political Content of Antitrust, 127 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1051 (1979); Schwartz, “Justice” and Other Non-Economic Goals of Antitrust, 127 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1076 (1979); Blake and Jones, Toward a Three-Dimensional Antitrust Policy, 65 Cal.L.Rev. 422 (1965).

. See Hawley, The New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly, 283-379 (1966) (tracing the strong influence of antitrust advocates in turning later New Deal policies away from pro-car-telization and planning practices).

. Pitofsky, supra, at 1052.

. Areeda and Turner, Predatory Pricing and Related Practices Under Section 2 of the Sherman Act, 88 Harv.L.Rev. 697 (1975).

. Professor Horwitz suggests that the “economic analysis of law is only the most recent claimant to draw upon the prestige of the natural sciences in the effort to create a system of legal thought that is objective, neutral and apolitical ... Law-and-economics emerges to fill the intellectual vacuum left by Legal Realism. It is one of the many responses to the Realist critique of all attempts to create a completely automatic and internally consistent realm of ‘pure law’.” Horwitz, Law and Economics: Science or Politics?, 8 Hofstra L.Rev. 905 (1980).

. Sullivan, Economics and More Humanistic Disciplines: What Are The Sources of Wisdom for Antitrust?, 125 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1214, 1222-23 (1977).

. This countervailing role is especially important in an area as vital to our economy as communications. This nation’s law has always recognized a policy in commerce that requires existing commitments to yield in favor of creative change. See W. Hurst, Law and the Conditions of Freedom 27 (1956). Perhaps the classic application of that policy came in the Charles River Bridge case, where the Supreme Court heid that a legislative grant to build and operate a toll bridge across the Charles River did not preclude the construction and operation of a competing bridge at a later time. Proprietors of the Charles River Bridge v. Proprietors of the Warren Bridge, 36 U.S. (11 Pet.) 420, 9 L.Ed. 773 (1837). Justice Taney’s opinion for the Court is as timely applied to the telecommunications technology involved in the case before us as it was to the less advanced modes of communication considered in 1837:
[I]n a country like ours, free, active, and enterprising, continually advancing in numbers and wealth, new channels of communication are daily found necessary, both for travel and trade; and are essential to the comfort, convenience, and prosperity of the people. A State ought never to be presumed to surrender this power [of promoting the happiness and prosperity of the community], because, like the taxing power, the whole community have an interest in preserving it undiminished .... No one will question that the interests of the great body of the people of the State, would, in this instance, be affected by the surrender of this great line of travel to a single corporation, with the right to exact toll, and exclude competition for seventy years. While the rights of private property are sacredly guarded, we must not forget that the community also have rights, and that the happiness and well being of every citizen depends on their faithful preservation.
Id. at 547-48. As Professor Hurst has noted, the Charles River Bridge case expresses this country’s “preferences for dynamic rather than static property, or for property put to creative new use rather than property content with what it is.” Hurst, supra, at 28.
As our history reveals, it would be unwise to assume that our regulatory agencies, bombarded with demands from multiple entrenched constituencies and guided by short-run efficiency concerns, will be as vigilant as the independent judiciary in vindicating this preference for “dynamic property.” See, e.g., Regulation (J. Wilson, ed. 1979); Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism (1967).

. A new entrant’s inefficiency may only be a short-run phenomenon associated with its recent start in an industry. If a longer view is taken, the new entrant will progress on its “learning curve” and may, in fact, ultimately be more efficient than the dominant firm. F.M. Scherer, Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance 82, 250-52 (2d ed. 1980).

. Indeed, the law of section 2 of the Sherman Act has been sensitive to the abuse of monopoly power in a way that the majority discounts.
The case law has even held unlawful actions by monopolists which, while lawful in themselves, evidence a purpose sufficient to transform monopoly into the offense of “monopolization.” United States v. Aluminum Company of America, 148 F.2d 416 (2d Cir.1945) (on certification from the Supreme Court); United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 110 F.Supp. 295 (D.Mass.1953), aff’d per curiam, 347 U.S. 521, 74 S.Ct. 699, 98 L.Ed. 910 (1954).

. The Ninth Circuit recently applied Inglis for the first time. In D & S Redi-Mix v. Sierra Redi-Mix and Contracting Co., 692 F.2d 1245 (9th Cir.1982), the court held unlawful predatory action in which a monopolist supported a subsidiary through the generous provision of credit, even where the resultant price exceeded average variable cost.

. While not necessary or alone sufficient to support the finding of predatory intent here, it should be noted that MCI produced evidence illuminating AT & T’s background motives, including statements by AT & T and operating company executives to a 1972 Florida meeting which stressed the need to prevent the effectu-ation of construction plans of MCI and other competitors by filing matching rates immediately and the need to “act now rather than wait until they have going business which regulators might not permit us to dislodge.” I believe that such evidence is at least probative of a defendant’s intent to eliminate a market entrant through the use of organizational power and monopoly resources rather than through competition on the merits.

. As the Supreme Court has recently emphasized:
Our willingness to accept a degree of uncertainty in these cases rests in part on the difficulty of ascertaining business damages as compared, for example, to damages resulting from a personal injury or from condemnation of a parcel of land. The vagaries of the marketplace usually deny us sure knowledge of what plaintiffs situation would have been in the absence of the defendant’s antitrust violation. But our willingness also rests on the principle articulated in cases such as Bigelow that it does not “come with very good grace” for the wrongdoer to insist upon specific and certain proof of the injury which it has itself inflicted. J. Truett Payne Co. v. Chrysler Motors Corp., 451 U.S. 557, 566-67, 101 S.Ct. 1923, 1929, 68 L.Ed.2d 442 (1981) (citations omitted). See Terrell, 494 F.2d at 25 (plaintiff’s “[ejxpert on damages need not be armed on the right hand with a slide rule, on the left hand with a computer. He is allowed some economic imagination so long as it does not become fantasy”). The figures within the Study, the testimony of MCI’s witnesses, and the arguments of MCI’s counsel did not create a delusive impression of exactness. See Herman Schwabe, Inc. v. United Shoe Mach. Corp., 297 F.2d 906, 912 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 369 U.S. 865, 82 S.Ct. 1031, 8 L.Ed.2d 85 (1962).

. We must be mindful of the Supreme Court’s admonition in Zenith, 395 U.S. at 123, 89 S.Ct. at 1562:
Trial and appellate courts alike must also observe the practical limits of the burden of proof which may be demanded of a treble-damage plaintiff who seeks recovery for injuries from a partial or total exclusion from a market; damage issues in these cases are rarely susceptible of the kind of concrete, detailed proof of injury which is available in other contexts.

. As Instruction 55 stated in pertinent part:
The law allows a party injured by conduct which violates the Sherman Act to collect damages even if the evidence does not reflect mathematical precision in the calculations of damages. However, estimates and projections must be grounded on assumptions that *1190reflect reasoned judgments based on competent evidence.
App. 1206-1207.

. AT & T developed two computer models to examine the assumptions and other variables within the Lost Profits Study. The model apparently permitted measurement of at least some changes that would occur as various factors in the Study were altered. AT & T, however, employed the computer models at trial on only two issues, one concerning the revenue rate at which MCI would show a loss in 1979, and the other dealing with the level at which a revenue loss would occur had local interconnection charges been doubled in prior years. AT & T never argued the availability of the models as a reasonable method of achieving disaggregation of damages stemming from lawful and unlawful conduct.

. The district court structured its instructions and special verdict form so that the jury could determine which of AT & T’s allegedly improper acts offended the antitrust laws and so comprised the unlawful course of conduct. The jury cannot be said to have rejected the single course of conduct viewpoint simply because it found that five of the fifteen acts did not comprise segments of that unlawful conduct. MCI’s contention throughout the trial was that AT & T’s unlawful acts in combination — no matter what combination — caused MCI’s harm, and it was that question that the jury decided.

. As the district court correctly noted: “[W]hat is often crucially important under § 2 is a pattern of conduct rather than one discrete activity.” MCI Communications Corp. v. American Tel. & Tel. Co., 462 F.Supp. at 1084. See Federal Prescription Serv., Inc. v. American Pharmaceutical Ass’n, 484 F.Supp. 1195, 1208-09 (D.D.C.1980), rev’d in part on other grounds, 663 F.2d 253 (D.C.Cir.1981).

. The defendant offered evidence to exhibit how the damage impact of each act was reasonably calculable. 458 F.Supp. at 434.

. The plaintiffs damage proof in that case was also fatally defective because it failed to account for adverse factors other than the defendant’s unlawfulness. The defendant’s evidence, for example, included a substantial showing of the plaintiffs mismanagement, adverse comment on plaintiff in the financial community, competition from other companies, and lawful competition from the defendant. The court found that given the plaintiffs failure to explain away the effect of any of those factors, any jury verdict rendered upon the unadjusted damage evidence would have been speculative. 458 F.Supp. at 435. Here, AT & T made similar claims which were explained away by MCI in a manner sufficient to present a jury question without additional adjustment of damage proof.

. In In re IBM Peripheral EDP Devices, the court explicitly found that “[p]articularization of injury is possible.” 481 F.Supp. at 1013. The district court in that case, after hearing all the evidence, stated that the plaintiff “could have done better. Rather than showing a general decline in profits and revenues, the damages proof could have been more closely connected to the individual acts complained of.” Id

. As the Supreme Court stated in reference to proof of antitrust damages:
[A]ny other rule would enable the wrongdoer to profit by his wrongdoing at the expense of his victim. It would be an inducement to make wrongdoing so effective and complete in every case as to preclude any recovery by rendering the measure of damages uncertain ....
The most elementary conceptions of justice and public policy require that the wrongdoer shall bear the risk of uncertainty which his wrong has created.
Bigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures, 327 U.S. 251, 264-65, 66 S.Ct. 574, 579-580, 90 L.Ed. 652 (1946).

. The majority asserts that the figure “lacks a foundation” in part because the author of the Study failed to provide evidence of its validity or reasonableness. Supra at 1165. Yet the author, Mr. Uhl, testified that he arrived at it through his assessment of market conditions in light of his long-term study of this area of business and listed a number of detailed factors which informed that assessment. Tr. 3330, 3334-5. For the majority to now hold this testimony insufficient is to again usurp the role of the jury in weighing credible and substantiated evidence. The majority also faults MCI for not calling as a witness a consultant who had viewed Mr. Uhl’s figure and had concurred as to its reasonableness. Yet, since the author was the actual source of the adjusted figure, the fact that another expert later approved of the figures does not mean the second expert must be called to lay a proper foundation for the study. In addition, it should be noted that the district court gave AT & T the option to call the consultant to testify, and that AT & T declined to do so after deposing him during a trial recess.

. Moreover, at trial AT & T attempted to demonstrate that the $.50 figure given by MCI was too low, and thus not appropriate in considering whether Telpak was predatorily priced. The jury may have believed AT & T’s evidence on that score because it found Telpak not to be priced at a predatory level. If the jury found that AT & T’s Telpak revenues were much higher than MCI claimed, this would be consistent with the finding that MCI could compete for those customers at the $.85 level.