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The Legal Structure Of American Freedom And The Provenance Of The Antitrust Immunities, Christopher Sagers

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

It is a reflection of the subtle relationship between legal doctrine and the larger social context it regulates that, on occasion, some humble point of mere theory proves to be the lynchpin of a serious social problem. Often the most pernicious aspect of such a situation will be the very obscuriyy that causes courts to overlook it.

That is emphatically the case with the issue addressed in this paper. Confusion persists over the seemingly academic question whether the so-called "Noerr-Pennington" or "petitioning" immunity, a doctrine in antitrust law which protects persons from being sued when they seek action from their …