Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly
| Bell Atlantic v. Twombly | |
|---|---|
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| Argued November 27, 2006 Decided May 21, 2007 |
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| Full case name | Bell Atlantic Corporation, BellSouth Corporation, Qwest Communications International Inc., SBC Communications Inc., and Verizon Communications Inc. (successor-in-interest to Bell Atlantic Corporation) v. William Twombly and Lawrence Marcus, both individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated |
| Docket nos. | 05-1126 |
| Citations | 550 U.S. 544 (more)
127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929, 75 USLW 4337, 2007-1 Trade Cases P 75,709, 68 Fed.R.Serv.3d 661, 07 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5550, 2007 Daily Journal D.A.R. 7097, 41 Communications Reg. (P&F) 567, 20 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 267
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| Argument | Oral argument |
| Prior history | Complaint dismissed, 313 F. Supp. 2d 174 (S.D.N.Y. 2003), vacated and remanded, 425 F.3d 99 (2d Cir. 2005), cert. granted, 548 U.S. 903 (2006) |
| Holding | |
| Parallel conduct alone, absent some evidence of agreement to engage in anti-competitive behavior, is not sufficient to prove a violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act. A complaint must allege facts with sufficient specificity to state a claim for relief that is plausible, not merely conceivable, on its face. | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Souter, joined by Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Breyer, Alito |
| Dissent | Stevens, joined by Ginsburg (except as to Part IV) |
| Laws applied | |
| Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1; Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2), 12(b)(6) | |
Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States involving antitrust law and civil procedure. Authored by Justice David Souter, it established that parallel conduct, absent evidence of agreement, is insufficient to sustain an antitrust action under § 1 of the Sherman Act. It also heightened the pleading requirement for Federal civil cases, requiring that plaintiffs include enough facts in their complaint to make it plausible—not merely possible or conceivable—that they will be able to prove facts to support their claims. This latter change in the law has been met with a great deal of controversy in legal circles, evidenced by the dissenting opinion from Justice John Paul Stevens.
William Twombly and Lawrence Marcus brought a class-action lawsuit alleging that Bell Atlantic and a number of other large telecommunications companies had engaged in anti-competitive behavior in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Specifically, the plaintiffs alleged that the companies had acted in order to disadvantage smaller telephone companies and charge consumers more by, for example, refraining from entering markets where another large company was dominant (thereby preventing a price war), even though the Telecommunications Act of 1996 had made it relatively inexpensive to do so.
Their complaint was dismissed by Judge Gerard E. Lynch of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, as failing to allege sufficient facts to state a claim for a violation of the Sherman Act. This decision was reversed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in 2006.
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