Quote:
Originally Posted by PatNY
Sigh ... in the American justice system, the judge or jury is the finder of FACT. And in this case, Cote found this FACT: Apple acted as ringleader and organizer of an illegal horizontal price fixing conspiracy. That, by the way, was Apple's evil deed. They were not dragged into court for simply "agreeing to allow the publishers to set prices" which completely misses the whole point of the case.
Cote's FACTS were upheld 2-1 at the circuit level. The fact that the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, means that Cote's FACTS were further upheld. While it is true that cases are less likely to be heard when the Supreme Court is short a justice, it is also true that it only takes 4 justices to grant cert -- a pretty low bar. Since Apple couldn't even muster the support of 4 justices, it is likely a full court would not have altered things.
As for precedent, from a legal perspective, this case will certainly hold sway within the second circuit at least. Moreover, courts from anywhere in the country can still base their rulings on and cite other circuit rulings in their opinions. From a practical everyday perspective, you better believe that company executives since Apple's court loss are much less likely to try to pull off the antics that Jobs did. A high profile case such as this is bound to have a lot of impact, with or without the Supremes weighing in.
So, bottom line, we are all getting our book credits now precisely because of this fact: Apple was guilty of breaking anti-trust law by playing a key role in a horizontal price fixing conspiracy.
--Pat
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No, not even close.
1) the appeal court didn't even consider the facts in the matter. They considered the specific legal points that Apple appealed on. So the 2-1 ruling says nada about the facts in the case.
2) The fact that the Supreme Court declined to review the case meant that the Supreme Court declined to review the case period. For those who haven't been paying attention, the Supreme Court is currently in a 4-4 split. Thus they are declining to hear a number of cases that they would have normally since they know that it will end in a deadlock. If the Supreme Court had chosen to hear the case and it ended in a deadlock, then the finding would have been upheld and it would have established precedent. By declining to hear it, they simply say the equivalent of "no comment". It's a rather important distinction.
3) You are correct that other judges (and lawyers) may point to the case. Of course, it's equally correct that Judge Jacobs' dissent may also be pointed at by other judges and lawyers. Certainly, lawyers will be advising their clients based on the decision, but then again, anti-trust law being the mess that it is, lawyers have been advising their clients to tread carefully in such cases for quite a while, as one can tell by reading the various anti-trust articles over the past decade. I rather doubt this case will make much of an impact in that regard. Just my opinion, of course.