California Dental Association v. Federal Trade Commission

Summary

Justice Souter's opinion unanimously held that the FTC has jurisdiction over the California Dental Association because its activities confer substantial economic benefits on its for-profit members. A five-Justice majority further held that the Ninth Circuit's abbreviated rule-of-reason analysis was insufficient to sustain the advertising restrictions' condemnation, because their anticompetitive effects were not intuitively obvious and their asserted benefits in preventing misleading professional advertising were plausible. The Court vacated and remanded for fuller consideration without requiring a full market analysis or deciding whether substantial evidence supported the Commission's conclusions. Justice Breyer, joined by Justices Stevens, Kennedy, and Ginsburg, concurred in Parts I and II but dissented from Part III; he would have affirmed because the Commission had established anticompetitive tendencies and sufficient market power, while the association had failed to establish offsetting procompetitive benefits.