Some legal wonkery

It occurred to me in the course of a dream last night (I do my best thinking when asleep) that the principles enunciated in 1986 by the Supreme Court in Matsushita et al v. Zenith Radio et al should be applied in the case of the so-called "terrorists" in England who were allegedly planning to carry liquid chemicals onto planes and mix them into explosives while on board the plane. This was an anti-trust case brought by Zenith and others against a bunch of Japanese TV manufacturers alleging that the Japanese had illegally conspired to monopolize the U.S. market for television sets by using oligopoly profits in their domestic market to subsidize low prices in the U.S. market designed to drive out domestic competition.

The case had a long and sordid history, but ended up in the Supreme Court after the Appeals Court had overturned a summary judgment against the plaintiffs in the District Court. To over simplify a bit, the Supreme Court essentially overturned the Appeals Court ruling, arguing that because low balling prices was not economically profitable and the allegedly sought monopoly would be hard to maintain, the defendants had no economic motive to do conspire as the suit claimed, and absent a rational motive, they could not be found to have done so. Here's a portion of the decision:

It follows from these settled principles that if the factual context renders respondents' claim implausible -- if the claim is one that simply makes no economic sense -- respondents must come forward with more persuasive evidence to support their claim than would otherwise be necessary. Cities Service is instructive. The issue in that case was whether proof of the defendant's refusal to deal with the plaintiff supported an inference that the defendant willingly had joined an illegal boycott. Economic factors strongly suggested that the defendant had no motive to join the alleged conspiracy. 391 U.S., at 278-279. The Court acknowledged that, in isolation, the defendant's refusal to deal might well have sufficed to create a triable issue. Id., at 277. But the refusal to deal had to be evaluated in its factual context. Since the defendant lacked any rational motive to join the alleged boycott, and since its refusal to deal was consistent with the defendant's independent interest, the refusal to deal could not by itself support a finding of antitrust liability. Id., at 280.

So, how does this apply to the alleged "terrorists?" As I've argued here before, the chance of successfully combining the chemicals to form an explosive on board a plane without being detected is essentially nil. They would would have to bring them on board, then mix them very slowly over ice to prevent a premature explosion, etc., etc. The details are here. There's simply no chance the plan would have succeeded. Hence, it would have been irrational for these guys to try to do this. Hence, under the Supreme Court's ruling, they didn't do it. Q.E.D.

As you can tell ,there hasn't been much news that caught my interest yet today :-)