Cite as: 508 U. S. 49 (1993)
Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
volved extensive evidence of anticompetitive motivation behind the lawsuit that followed an elaborate and unsuccessful lobbying effort,6 and in the third a collateral lawsuit was only one of the many ways in which the antitrust defendant had allegedly tried to put the plaintiff out of business.7 In each
those claims had become objectively unreasonable supported a jury's sham finding. AT&T's anticompetitive actions were in fact so far removed from the act of petitioning the government for relief that Chief Judge Oakes and Judge Meskill also held, in reliance on Continental Ore Co. v. Union Carbide & Carbon Corp., 370 U. S. 690 (1962), and Cantor v. Detroit Edison Co., 428 U. S. 579 (1976) (plurality opinion), that tariff filings with the Federal Communications Commission were acts of private commercial activity in the marketplace rather than requests for governmental action, and thus were not even arguably protected by the Noerr-Pennington doctrine. Litton Systems, 700 F. 2d, at 806-809.
6 Westmac, Inc. v. Smith, 797 F. 2d 313 (CA6 1986), cert. denied, 479 U. S. 1035 (1987). Although the Sixth Circuit did hold that the genuine substance of an anticompetitive lawsuit creates a rebuttable presumption of objective reasonableness, given the facts of that case—in which the antitrust plaintiff had presented strong evidence that the defendants' lawsuit, which followed a long and unsuccessful lobbying effort, had been motivated solely for the anticompetitive harm the judicial process would inflict on it—that modest reservation was probably wise. Evidence of anticompetitive animus in Westmac was in fact so great that Chief Judge Merritt thought that the plaintiff had successfully rebutted the presumptive reasonableness of defendants' lawsuit. The delay from the defendants' combined lobbying and litigation attack had allegedly sent the plaintiff into bankruptcy, and memos from one defendant to its attorney had stated, " 'If this [lobbying activity] doesn't succeed, start a lawsuit— bonds won't sell,' " 797 F. 2d, at 318, and (in a statement repeated to a codefendant), " 'if nothing else, we'll delay sale of the bonds,' " id., at 322 (Merritt, C. J., dissenting) (emphasis omitted). In any event, the Sixth Circuit rule—to the extent that it would apply in a case as simple as this one—would result in the same conclusion we reach here.
7 Federal Prescription Service, Inc. v. American Pharmaceutical Assn., 214 U. S. App. D. C. 76, 663 F. 2d 253 (1981), cert. denied, 455 U. S. 928 (1982). In that case, the antitrust plaintiff alleged a 2-decade long conspiracy to lobby, boycott, and sue it (in state licensing boards, state legislatures, the marketplace, and both state and federal courts) out of existence. In spite of those allegations, the Court of Appeals found that
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