Antitrust Antitextualism

By Daniel A. Crane (University of Michigan)

Judges and scholars frequently describe antitrust as a common law system predicated on open-textured statutes, but that description fails to capture a historically persistent phenomenon; judicial disregard of the plain meaning of the statutory texts and manifest purposes of Congress. This pattern of judicial nullification is not evenly distributed: When the courts have deviated from the plain meaning or Congressional purpose, they have uniformly done so to limit the reach of antitrust liability or curtail the labor exemption to the benefit of industrial interests. This phenomenon cannot be explained solely or even primarily as a tug-of-war between a progressive Congress and conservative courts. The judges responsible for these decisions were far from uniformly conservative, Congress has not mobilized to overturn the judicial precedents, nor, despite opportunities to do so, have the courts constitutionalized their holdings to prevent Congressional overriding. Antitrust antitextualism is best understood as an implicit political arrangement in which Congress writes broad statutes expressing anti-bigness republican idealism, and then the courts read down the statutes pragmatically to accommodate competing demands for efficiency and industrial progress.

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