Lead Opinion
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to decide whether consumers who pay a higher price for goods purchased for personal use as a result of antitrust violations sustain an injury in their “business or property” within the meaning of § 4 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, 15 U. S. C. § 15.
Petitioner brought a class action on behalf of herself and all persons in the United States who purchased hearing aids manufactured by five corporations, rеspondents here. Her complaint alleges that respondents have committed a variety of antitrust violations, including vertical and horizontal price fixing.
Respondents moved for dismissal of the complaint or summary judgment in the District Court. Among other things, respondents argued that Reiter, as a retail purchaser of hearing aids for personal use, lacked standing to sue for treble damages under § 4 of the Clаyton Act because she had not been injured in her “business or property” within the meaning of the Act.
The District Court held that under § 4 a retail purchaser is injured in “property” if the purchaser can show that antitrust violations caused an increase in the price paid for the article purchased. The District Court relied on Chattanooga Foundry & Pipe Works v. Atlanta,
The District Court determined, however, that the respondents had raised a “controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion,” id., at 938, and accordingly certified the question for interlocutory review under 28 U. S. C. § 1292 (b). It then stayed further proceedings in the case and declined to express any opinion on the merits of the other issues raised by respondеnts’ motions or on the certifiability of the class.
The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that retail purchasers of consumer goods and services who allege no injury of a commercial or business nature are not injured in their “business or property” within the meaning of § 4.
II
As is true in every case involving the construction of a statute, our starting point must be the language employed by Congress. Section 4 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, provides:
“Any person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws may sue therefor in any district court of the United States . . . without respect to the amount in controversy, and shall recover threefold the damages by him sustained, and the cost of suit, including a reasonable attorney’s fee.” 15 U. S. C. § 15 (emphasis added).
On its face, § 4 contains little in the way of restrictive language. In Pfizer Inc. v. Government of India,
“ ‘The Act is comprehensive in its terms and coverage, protecting all who are made victims of the forbidden prac*338 tices by whomever they may be perpetrated.’ Mandeville Island Farms, Inc. v. American Crystal Sugar Co.,334 U. S. 219 , 236; cf. Perma Life Mufflers, Inc. v. International Parts Corp.,392 U. S. 134 , 138-139. And the legislative history of the Sherman Act demonstrates that Congress used the phrase 'any person’ intending it to have its naturally broad and inclusive meaning. There was no mention in the floor debates of any more restrictive definition.” Id., at 312.
Similarly here, the word “property” has a naturally broad and inclusive meaning. In its dictionary definitions and in common usage “property” comprehends anything of material value owned or possessed. See, e. g., Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1818 (1961). Money, of course, is a form of property.
Respondents protest that, if the reference to “property” in § 4 means “money,” the term “business” then becomes superfluous, for every injury in one’s business necessarily involves a pecuniary injury. They argue that if Congress wished to permit one who lost only money to bring suit under § 4, it would not have used the restrictive phrase “business or property” ; rather, it would have employed more generic language akin to that of § 16, for example, which provides for injunctive relief against.any “threatened loss or damage.” 15 U. S. C. § 26. Congress plainly intended to exclude some category of injury in choosing the phrase “business or property” for § 4. Only a “commercial interest” gloss, they argue, both gives the phrase the restrictive significance intended for it and at the same time gives independent significance to the word “business” and the word “property.” The argument of respondents is straightforward: the phrase “business or property” means “business activity or property related to one’s business.” Brief for Respondents 11 n. 7.
That strained construction would have us ignore the disjunctive “or” and rob the term “property” of its independent
When a commercial enterprise suffers a loss of money it suffers an injury in both its “business” and its “property.” But neither term is rendered redundant by recognizing that a consumer not engaged in a “business” enterprise, but rather acquiring goods or services for personal use, is injured in “property” when the price of those goods or services is artificially inflated by reason of the anticompetitive conduct complained of. The phrase “business or property” also retains restrictive significance. It would, for example, exclude personal injuries suffered. E. g., Hamman v. United States,
Indeed, this Court indicated as much in Chattanooga Foundry & Pipe Works v. Atlanta,
“The city was . . . injured in its property, at least, if not in its business of furnishing water, by being led to pаy more than the worth of the pipe. A person whose property is diminished by a payment of money wrongfully induced is injured in his property.”203 U. S., at 396 .
The holding of Chattanooga Foundry could well have been grounded on the undisputed fact that the city was engaged in the commercial enterprise of supplying water for a charge and, therefore, engaged in a business. It was not uncommon for both municipalities and private companies to own and operate competing waterworks at the turn of the century. In operating a municipal public utility, the city was in a real sense engaged in the “business of furnishing water” when it purchased the pipe to carry water from the city’s reservoirs to its customers. Ibid.
Yet, the Court’s holding in Chattanooga Foundry was deliberately grounded on the premise that the city had been injured in its “property” — independent of any injury it had sustained in its “business of furnishing water”' — beсause the defendants’ antitrust violation caused it to pay a higher price for the pipe than it otherwise would have paid. Ibid. Chattanooga Foundry therefore establishes that monetary injury, standing alone, may be injury in one’s “property” within the meaning of § 4. Thus, the fact that petitioner Reiter was deprived of only money, albeit a modest amount, is no reason to conclude that she did not sustain a “property” injury.
Nor does her status as a “consumer” change the nature of
Hawaii v. Standard Oil Co.,
However, the language of an opinion is not always to be parsed as though we were dealing with language of a statute. Use of the phrase “commercial interests or enterprises,” read in context, in no sense suggests that only injuries to a business entity are within the ambit of § 4. Respondents ignore the Court’s careful use of the disjunctive and the naturally broad meaning of the term “interests” in Hawaii v. Standard Oil Co., supra. The phrase “commercial interests” was used there as a generic reference to the interests of the
Consumers in the United States purchase at retail more than $1.2 trillion in goods and services annually. 1978 Economic Report of the President 257 (Table B-l). It is in the sound commercial interests of thе retail purchasers of goods and services to obtain the lowest price possible within the framework of our competitive private enterprise system. The essence of the antitrust laws is to ensure fair price competition in an open market. Here, where petitioner alleges a wrongful deprivation of her money because the price of the hearing aid she bought was artificially inflated by reason of respondents’ anticompetitive conduct, she has alleged an injury in her “property” under § 4.
Nothing in the legislative history of § 4 conflicts with our holding today. Many courts and commentators have observed that the respective legislative histories of § 4 of the Clayton Act and § 7 of the Sherman Act, its predecessor, shed no light on Congress’ original understanding of the terms “business or prоperty.”
In Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., supra, after examining the legislative history of § 4, we described the Sherman Act as “conceived of primarily as a remеdy for ‘[t]he people of the United States as individuals/ especially consumers,” and the treble-damages provision of the Clayton Act as “conceived primarily as ‘open[ing] the door of justice
Respondents also argue that allowing class actions to be brought by retail consumers like the petitioner here will add a significant burden to the already crowded dockets of the federal courts. That may well be true but cannot be a controlling consideration here. We must take the statute as we find it. Congress crеated the treble-damages remedy of § 4 precisely for the purpose of encouraging private challenges to antitrust violations. These private suits provide a significant supplement to the limited resources available to the Department of Justice for enforcing the antitrust laws and deterring violations. Indeed, nearly 20 times as many private antitrust actions are currently pending in the federal сourts as actions filed by the Department of Justice. Administrative Office of the United States Courts Ann. Rep. 101, Table 28 (1978). To be sure, these private suits impose a heavy litigation burden on the federal courts; it is the clear responsibility of Congress to provide the judicial resources necessary to execute its mandates.
Finally, respondents argue that the cost of defending consumer class actions will hаve a potentially ruinous effect on small businesses in particular and will ultimately be paid by
District courts must be especially alert to identify frivolous claims brought to extort nuisance settlements; they have broad power and discretion vested in them by Ted. Rule Civ. Proc. 23 with respect to matters involving the certification and management of potentially cumbersome or frivolous class actions. See generally Durham & Dibble, Certification: A Practical Device for Eаrly Screening of Spurious Antitrust Litigation, 1978 B. Y. U. L. Rev. 299. Recognition of the plain meaning of the statutory language “business or property” need not result in administrative chaos, class-action harassment, or “windfall” settlements if the district courts exercise sound discretion and use the tools available.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this оpinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Notes
Specifically, Reiter alleges that respondents violated §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1 and 2, and § 3 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, 15 U. S. C. § 14. She claims respondents restricted the territories, customers, and brands of hearing aids offered by their retail dealers, used the customer lists of their retail dealers for their own purposes, prohibited unauthorized retailers from dealing in or repairing their hearing aids, and conspired among themselves and with their retail dealers to fix the retail prices of the hearing aids.
Differing views on this issue have been expressed by various courts. See, e. g., Reiter v. Sonotone Corp.,
The Court of Appeals expressly noted that Reiter’s claim for injunctive relief under § 16 of the Clayton Act was riot before it on interlocutory apрeal.
See, e. g., Hawaii v. Standard Oil Co.,
As originally introduced, the bill that ultimately beсame the Sherman Act authorized "any person or corporation injured or damnified by [an unlawful] arrangement, contract, agreement, trust, or combination” to sue for damages thereby sustained. S. 1, 51st Cong., 1st Sess., §2 (1889).
Of course, the treble-damages remedy of § 4 took on new practical significance for consumers with the advent of Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23.
Although in no sense a controlling consideration, we note that our holding is consistent with the assumption on which Congress enacted the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, 90 Stat. 1394, 15 U. S. C. § 15c et seq. The 'text and legislative history of this statute make clear that in 1976 Congress believed that consumers have a cause of action under § 4, which the statute authorizes the states to assert in a parens patriae capacity. See, e. g., 15 U. S. C. §§ 15c (a)(1), 15c (a)(1) (B)(ii), 15c (b)(2); H. R. Rep. No. 94^499, pp. 6, 9 (1975). See also Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois,
Concurrence Opinion
concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion and write separаtely only to point out that the concern expressed by the Court of Appeals that an interpretation of “business or property” in the manner in which the Court interprets it today would “add a substantial volume of litigation to the already strained dockets of the federal courts and could be used to exact unfair settlements from retail businesses,” ante, at 336, is by no means an unfounded one. And pronouncemеnts from this Court exhorting district courts to be “especially alert to identify frivolous