Too busy doing what? Beating up on antitrust plaintiffs whose hands
are tied behind their backs by U.S. judges appointed by Reagan/Meese--and
then 'educated' at Henry Manne's primitive pro-monopoly 'Sunshine Seminars'
in Florida? Antitrust in America in 1998 resembles nothing so much as the
Rodney King beating--helpless victim on the ground, club-swinging bullies
smashing him for the fun of it from above. Brave men, right? Same thing
when our 1,000 judges clamp handcuffs on the country's small enterprise
owners and you and your law firm club them into bankruptcy. You ought to be
ashamed of yourself for not having found an honest job somewhere.
Could Howrey & Simon win a parking-ticket antitrust case in Burning
Stump, Kansas, if it didn't already own the courthouse? If there's been an
honest antitrust trial in the U.S. during the past 20 years, I haven't heard
about it. You win solely under the gun of a biased judiciary--via summary
judgment, rigged jury instructions, directed verdicts, and overturned jury
verdicts. To suggest that you win antitrust cases anywhere on the 'merits'
reflects the kind of hubris that currently disgraces American antitrust law.
You don't believe the number of antitrust cases filed in the U.S.
courts has shrunk from 1,600 to 400? That the membership of the ABA
Antitrust Section has shrunk from 25,000 to 5,000? Then why don't you have
Howrey & Simon check those numbers and 'educate' the group's members here?
Charles Mueller, Editor
ANTITRUST LAW & ECONOMICS REVIEW
http://webpages.metrolink.net/~cmueller
***************
Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: BriggsJ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'charles mueller'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: How Not to Maximize Profits?
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 19:27:35 -0500
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I think a lot of the antitrust lawyers are maybe just too busy to deal
with your screed.
1. My firm has tried to juries a great number of antitrust cases in
recent years, including some very large plaintiffs' cases. We have tried
an even larger number of such cases for defendants. The system is alive
and well for the most part, although sensible law and economics have
shut down the plaintiffs' extortion machine that existed in the '70's,
when, among other things, many a simple dealer termination found it's
way into court as a treble damage antitrust case.
2. I very much doubt that private antitrust cases have gone from 1600
per year to 400, especially if you look at state court filings under
unfair competition statutes and the like. Such state cases have captured
cases that, in the '70's, might have been brought pre-Illinois Brick and
pre-Brunswick and Cargill. I believe that if you peruse the CCH and ATRR
reporters, would will find that the actual number of filings is much
higher than 400. Someone surely has the 1997 stats from the
Administrative offices of US Courts. Perhaps you should check them out
yourself and let us all know what they say.
3. The ABA Section of Antitrust Law surely never had 25,00 members, even
in the mid-70's; I believe 12-13,000 was tops. When I was Chair of that
Section in 1994-95, membership was just under 10,000, about where I
believe it stands today. There are many lawyers in that Section who do
work for plaintiffs. Indeed, much of the antitrust litigation involves
very large enterprises suing each other.
4. A decent argument can be made (and in fact has been made from time
to time) in support of the proposition that many antitrust cases are so
complex and confusing that to provide a jury trial under the 7th
Amendment would deny the defendant(s) their due process rights as
guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. The argument has never been accepted,
at least in any reported decision, but it has some powerful elements to
it. Do you think that the Seventh Amendment trumps the Fifth Amendment?
Should juries be allowed to as "fact" matters that are flat wrong as a
matter of economics?
5. Why are you so concerned about the incomes of antitrust lawyers? What
about investment bankers? Rock Stars? Athletes? Mobsters?
Industrialists? Economists? Scholars? ...What is your point?
