Hartford Fire Ins. Co. v. California, 509 U.S. 764, 26 (1993)

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Cite as: 509 U. S. 764 (1993)

Souter, J., concurring in judgment

mary insurers, announced that they would not reinsure under the ISO CGL forms until changes were made. As an immediate result of this pressure, ISO decided to include a retroactive-date provision in its claims-made form, and to exclude all pollution coverage from both its claims-made and occurrence forms. In sum, the four primary insurers solicited refusals to deal from outside the primary insurance industry as a means of forcing their fellow primary insurers to agree to their terms; the outsiders, acting at the behest of the four, in fact refused to deal with primary insurers until they capitulated, which, in part at least, they did.

This pattern of activity bears a striking resemblance to the first act of boycott listed by the South-Eastern Underwriters Court; although neither the South-Eastern Underwriters opinion, nor the underlying indictment, see Transcript of Record, O. T. 1943, No. 354, p. 11 (¶ 22(e)), details exactly how the defendants managed to "cut off [nonmembers] from the opportunity to reinsure their risks," 322 U. S., at 535, the defendants could have done so by prompting rein-surance companies to refuse to deal with nonmembers, just as is alleged here.16 Moreover, the activity falls squarely

16 The majority claims that this refusal to deal was a boycott only because "membership in the association [had] no discernible bearing upon the terms of the refused reinsurance contracts." Post, at 809. Testimony at the hearings on the bill that became the McCarran-Ferguson Act indicates that the insurance companies thought otherwise. "We say 'You do not issue insurance to a company that does not do business the way we think it should be done and belong to our association.' . . . It is for the protection of the public, the stockholders, and the companies. . . . You know when those large risks are taken that they have to be reinsured. We do not want to have to take a risk that is bad, or at an improper rate, or an excessive commission, we do not want our agents to take that, nor do we want to reinsure part of the risk that is written that way. We feel this way—that some groups are doing business in what is not the proper way, we feel it is not in the interest of the companies and it is not in the interest of the public, and we just do not want to do business with them." Joint Hearing on S. 1362, H. R. 3269, and H. R. 3270 before the Subcommittees of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 2,

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