466
Opinion of the Court
the ability to raise prices of service and parts above the level that would be charged in a competitive market because any increase in profits from a higher price in the aftermarkets at least would be offset by a corresponding loss in profits from lower equipment sales as consumers began purchasing equipment with more attractive service costs.
Kodak does not present any actual data on the equipment, service, or parts markets. Instead, it urges the adoption of a substantive legal rule that "equipment competition precludes any finding of monopoly power in derivative aftermarkets." Brief for Petitioner 33. Kodak argues that such a rule would satisfy its burden as the moving party of showing "that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact" on the market power issue.11 See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(c).
Legal presumptions that rest on formalistic distinctions rather than actual market realities are generally disfavored
cial resources with a view to deciding the merits of one or more of the questions presented in the petition." Because respondents failed to bring their objections to the premise underlying the questions presented to our attention in their opposition to the petition for certiorari, we decide those questions based on the same premise as the Court of Appeals, namely, that competition exists in the equipment market.
11 Kodak argues that such a rule would be per se, with no opportunity for respondents to rebut the conclusion that market power is lacking in the parts market. See Brief for Petitioner 30-31 ("There is nothing that respondents could prove that would overcome Kodak's conceded lack of market power"); id., at 30 (discovery is "pointless" once the "dispositive fact" of lack of market power in the equipment market is conceded); id., at 22 (Kodak's lack of market power in the equipment market "dooms any attempt to extract monopoly profits" even in an allegedly imperfect market); id., at 25 (it is "impossible" for Kodak to make more total profit by overcharging its existing customers for service).
As an apparent second-best alternative, Kodak suggests elsewhere in its brief that the rule would permit a defendant to meet its summary judgment burden under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c); the burden would then shift to the plaintiffs to "prove . . . that there is specific reason to believe that normal economic reasoning does not apply." Brief for Petitioner 30. This is the United States' position. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 10-11.
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