800
Opinion of the Court
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Part I, and delivered a dissenting opinion with respect to Part II.*
With respect to the petition in No. 91-1111, I join the Court's judgment and Parts I and II-A of its opinion. I write separately because I do not agree with Justice Souter's analysis, set forth in Part II-B of his opinion, of what constitutes a "boycott" for purposes of § 3(b) of the McCarran-Ferguson Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1013(b). With respect to the petition in No. 91-1128, I dissent from the Court's ruling concerning the extraterritorial application of the Sherman Act. Part I below discusses the boycott issue; Part II extraterritoriality.
I
Determining proper application of § 3(b) of the McCarran-Ferguson Act to the present cases requires precise definition of the word "boycott." 1 It is a relatively new word, little more than a century old. It was first used in 1880, to describe the collective action taken against Captain Charles Boycott, an English agent managing various estates in Ireland. The Land League, an Irish organization formed the previous year, had demanded that landlords reduce their rents and had urged tenants to avoid dealing with those who failed to do so. Boycott did not bend to the demand and instead ordered evictions. In retaliation, the tenants "sen[t] Captain Boycott to Coventry in a very thorough manner." J. McCarthy, England Under Gladstone 108 (1886). "The population of the region for miles round resolved not to have anything to do with him, and, as far as they could prevent
*Justice O'Connor, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Thomas join this opinion in its entirety, and The Chief Justice joins Part I of this opinion.
1 Section 3(b) of the McCarran-Ferguson Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1013(b), provides:
"Nothing contained in this Act shall render the said Sherman Act inapplicable to any agreement to boycott, coerce, or intimidate, or act of boycott, coercion, or intimidation."
Page: Index Previous 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007