256
Stevens, J., dissenting
As a matter of economics, the Court reminds us that price cutting is generally procompetitive, and hence a "boon to consumers." Ante, at 224. This is true, however, only so long as reduced prices do not fall below cost, as the cases cited by the majority make clear.16 When a predator deliberately engages in below-cost pricing targeted at a particular competitor over a sustained period of time, then price cutting raises a credible inference that harm to compe-everybody else charged, was a fair and equitable price for that product to the American consumer.
"A It's what the industry set, and based on that it's a fair price." App. 396.
The problem with this testimony, and testimony like it, is that it relates to the period before the price war, as well as after, see id., at 392, when there is no real dispute but that prices were supracompetitive. ("[T]he profits in the cigarette industry are the best of any industry I've been associated with, very much so." Ibid.) Some of the testimony cited by the Court, for instance, is that of an outside director who served only from 1977 or 1978 until 1980, see 64 Tr. 51-56, cited ante, at 237; his belief in the competitiveness of his industry must be viewed against the "[s]ubstantial evidence suggest[ing] that in recent decades, the industry reaped the benefits of prices above a competitive level" to which the majority itself refers, ante, at 213.
The jury was, of course, entitled to discount the probative force of testimony from executives to the effect that there was no collusion among tobacco manufacturers, App. 397-398, and that they had appeared before a congressional committee to vouch for the competitive nature of their industry, id., at 623-631. The jury was also free to give greater weight to the documentary evidence presented, the inferences to be drawn there-from, and the testimony of experts who agreed with the textbook characterization of the industry. See App. 640-645; R. Tennant, American Cigarette Industry 342 (1950).
16 In Atlantic Richfield Co. v. USA Petroleum Co., 495 U. S. 328, 339-340 (1990), for example, we noted that low prices benefit consumers "so long as they are above predatory levels." In Cargill, Inc. v. Monfort of Colorado, Inc., 479 U. S. 104, 118 (1986), we recognized that price cutting of a predatory nature is "inimical" to competition, and limited our approving comments to pricing that is "above some measure of incremental costs." Id., at 117-118, and n. 12 (internal quotation marks omitted).
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