## Facts

- Texas Industries, Inc. and several other firms manufactured and sold ready-mix concrete.
- A concrete purchaser sued Texas in federal court, alleging a price-fixing conspiracy in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act and seeking treble damages under § 4 of the Clayton Act.
- Discovery identified Radcliff Materials, Inc. and other firms as alleged co-conspirators.
- Texas filed a third-party complaint against those firms seeking contribution if Texas were held liable in the treble-damages action.

## Issues

1. Whether the Sherman Act and Clayton Act expressly or implicitly create a right of contribution among jointly liable antitrust defendants in private treble-damages actions.
2. Whether federal courts may create a federal common-law right of contribution among antitrust wrongdoers.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed dismissal of Texas’s third-party complaint.
- The Court held the antitrust statutes do not create, expressly or by implication, any right to contribution among antitrust violators.
- The Court held federal courts lack authority to fashion a federal common-law contribution rule in this setting.

## Legal Principles

- Absent congressional direction, courts will not infer a contribution right that would alter the remedial structure Congress chose for antitrust enforcement.
- The treble-damages remedy reflects punitive and deterrent objectives; permitting contribution among co-conspirators would dilute those objectives.
- Federal common law is limited to areas involving uniquely federal interests or where Congress has authorized judicial lawmaking; private allocation of antitrust liability among wrongdoers does not qualify.
- Even if courts develop standards governing substantive antitrust violations, that does not imply authority to supplement or revise statutory remedies such as treble damages and joint and several liability.

## Conclusion

Federal antitrust law provides no right to contribution among joint tortfeasors in private treble-damages suits, and federal courts may not create such a right as federal common law; any change to that remedial scheme must come from Congress.


Texas Indus., Inc. v. Radcliff Materials, Inc., 451 U.S. 630 (1981)