62
Opinion of the Court
IV
We conclude that the Court of Appeals properly affirmed summary judgment for Columbia on PRE's antitrust counterclaim. Under the objective prong of the sham exception, the Court of Appeals correctly held that sham litigation must constitute the pursuit of claims so baseless that no reasonable litigant could realistically expect to secure favorable relief. See 944 F. 2d, at 1529.
The existence of probable cause to institute legal proceedings precludes a finding that an antitrust defendant has engaged in sham litigation. The notion of probable cause, as understood and applied in the common-law tort of wrongful civil proceedings,7 requires the plaintiff to prove that the defendant lacked probable cause to institute an unsuccessful civil lawsuit and that the defendant pressed the action for an improper, malicious purpose. Stewart v. Sonneborn, 98 U. S. 187, 194 (1879); Wyatt v. Cole, 504 U. S. 158, 176 (1992) (Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting); T. Cooley, Law of Torts *181. Cf. Wheeler v. Nesbitt, 24 How. 544, 549-550 (1861) (related tort for malicious prosecution of criminal charges). Probable cause to institute civil proceedings requires no more than a "reasonabl[e] belie[f] that there is a chance that [a] claim
representations, condoned in the political arena, are not immunized when used in the adjudicatory process." California Motor Transport, 404 U. S., at 512-513. We need not decide here whether and, if so, to what extent Noerr permits the imposition of antitrust liability for a litigant's fraud or other misrepresentations. Cf. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 60(b)(3) (allowing a federal court to "relieve a party . . . from a final judgment" for "fraud . . . , misrepresentation, or other misconduct of an adverse party"); Walker Process Equipment, Inc. v. Food Machinery & Chemical Corp., 382 U. S. 172, 176-177 (1965); id., at 179-180 (Harlan, J., concurring).
7 This tort is frequently called "malicious prosecution," which (strictly speaking) governs the malicious pursuit of criminal proceedings without probable cause. See W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Torts § 120, p. 892 (5th ed. 1984). The threshold for showing probable cause is no higher in the civil context than in the criminal. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 674, Comment e, pp. 454-455 (1977).
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