## Facts

- Competing highway motor carriers operated in and around California.
- Rival carriers alleged that incumbent carriers conspired to monopolize the motor-carrier business by using administrative and judicial proceedings to block competitors’ operating rights.
- The alleged conduct included filing objections and initiating or pursuing rehearings, reviews, and appeals before state and federal agencies and courts against competitors’ applications for certificates, transfers, or registrations.
- The complaint alleged a pattern of massive, concerted proceedings intended to harass competitors, raise their costs, and deter them from effective participation before agencies and courts.
- Competitors also alleged misrepresentations and efforts to corrupt or usurp adjudicatory decisionmaking so rivals could not obtain fair consideration.
- Competitors sued under § 4 of the Clayton Act seeking injunctive relief and treble damages; the district court dismissed for failure to state a claim, and the court of appeals reversed.

## Issues

1. Whether the First Amendment right to petition and Noerr–Pennington doctrine immunize a concerted campaign of administrative and judicial filings aimed at opposing rivals’ operating-rights applications.
2. Whether Noerr–Pennington immunity extends to petitioning administrative agencies and courts, and, if so, whether immunity is lost when petitioning is used as a sham or as a means to deny competitors meaningful access to adjudicatory tribunals.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the reversal of the dismissal and remanded for trial.
- The right to petition includes access to courts and administrative agencies, and joint efforts to present views to those bodies are generally protected.
- Petitioning immunity is not absolute; if the alleged campaign of filings was used to harass and deter rivals from meaningful access to agencies and courts, the conduct may violate the antitrust laws.
- Misrepresentations and similar tactics are not protected when used in adjudicatory processes to distort decisionmaking.
- A Sherman/Clayton Act violation may be shown even if the individual filings or procedural steps are facially lawful, when they are used as part of a concerted anticompetitive scheme.

## Legal Principles

- Noerr–Pennington generally immunizes good-faith petitioning of government from antitrust liability, including petitioning directed to administrative agencies and courts.
- Petitioning loses immunity when it is a sham—i.e., when the process is used as an instrument of direct interference with competitors rather than a genuine effort to obtain governmental action.
- A concerted pattern of proceedings intended to deny rivals meaningful access to adjudicatory tribunals, or to corrupt adjudicatory decisionmaking, can constitute anticompetitive conduct actionable under federal antitrust law.
- Conduct may be unlawful under antitrust statutes even when the means employed are individually lawful, if used collectively to restrain trade or attempt monopolization.

## Conclusion

The Court held that although competitors may jointly petition agencies and courts, the antitrust laws can reach a concerted, abusive pattern of litigation and administrative filings—especially involving misrepresentation or process manipulation—when used to block rivals’ meaningful access to adjudicatory forums and to exclude competition.


Cal. Motor Transp. Co. v. Trucking Unlimited, 404 U.S. 508 (1972)