finding illegal a rule forbidding competitive bidding within professional organization, apparently made on the good faith belief that competitive bidding would result in deficient engineering work and defective products
How later courts described this case
- finding illegal a rule forbidding competitive bidding within professional organization, apparently made on the good faith belief that competitive bidding would result in deficient engineering work and defective products
- explaining that the “First Amendment does not ‘make it . . . impossible ever to enforce laws against agreements in restraint of trade . . . .’” (quoting Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U.S. 490, 502 (1949))
- holding that policy goals such as protecting public safety and promoting ethical behavior do not qualify as legitimate pro-competitive objectives unless they serve to “regulate and promote” competition
- noting that the Sherman Act "reflects a legislative judgment that ultimately competition will produce not only lower prices, but also better goods and services.... The assumption that competition is the best method of allocating resources in a free market recognizes that all elements of a bargain — quality, service, safety, and durability. — and not just the immediate cost, are favorably affected by the free opportunity to select among alternative offers.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. Chief Justice Burger,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the Court’s judgment to the extent it sustains the finding of a violation of the Sherman Act but dissent from that portion of the judgment prohibiting petitioner from stating in its published standards of ethics the view that competitive bidding is unethical. The First Amendment guarantees the right to express such a position and that right cannot be impaired under the cloak of remedial judicial action.