218
Opinion of the Court
branded cigarettes. Nonetheless, at least some portion of the list price increase was reflected in a higher net price to the consumer.
In December 1985, Brown & Williamson attempted to increase its list prices, but retracted the announced increase when the other firms adhered to their existing prices. Thus, after Liggett's June 1985 increase, list prices on generics did not change again until the summer of 1986, when a pattern of twice yearly increases in tandem with the full-priced branded cigarettes was established. The dollar amount of these increases was the same for generic and full-priced cigarettes, which resulted in a greater percentage price increase in the less expensive generic cigarettes and a narrowing of the percentage gap between the list price of branded and black and white cigarettes, from approximately 38% at the time Brown & Williamson entered the segment to approximately 27% at the time of trial. Also by the time of trial, five of the six manufacturers, including Liggett, had introduced so-called "subgenerics," a category of branded generic cigarettes that sold at a discount of 50% or more off the list price of full-priced branded cigarettes.
After a 115-day trial involving almost 3,000 exhibits and over a score of witnesses, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Liggett, finding on the special verdict form that Brown & Williamson had engaged in price discrimination that had a reasonable possibility of injuring competition in the domestic cigarette market as a whole. The jury awarded Liggett $49.6 million in damages, which the District Court trebled to $148.8 million. After reviewing the record, however, the District Court held that Brown & Williamson was entitled to judgment as a matter of law on three separate grounds: lack of injury to competition, lack of antitrust injury to Liggett, and lack of a causal link between the discriminatory rebates and Liggett's alleged injury. Liggett Group, Inc. v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 748 F. Supp. 344 (MDNC 1990). With respect to the first issue, which is the
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