California Dental Association v. Federal Trade Commission’s Empirical Analysis
1999
Citation profile
144 federal appellate · 12 district · 18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 340 later decisions (9 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Todd v. Exxon Corp. (2001), Major League Baseball Properties, Inc. v. Salvino, Inc. (2008)
144 federal appellate · 12 district · 18 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedCalifornia Dental Ass'n v. Federal Trade Commission (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 1 (§ 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act) · 15 U.S.C. § 44 (§ 4 of the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914) · 15 U.S.C. § 45 (§ 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914) · 26 U.S.C. § 501
Relies on Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. · Universal Camera Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board · United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. · Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc. · Brown Shoe Co. v. United States
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 340 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]here is generally no categorical line to be drawn between restraints that give rise to an intuitively obvious inference of anticompetitive effect and those that call for more detailed treatment. What is required, rather, is an enquiry meet for the case, looking to the circumstances, details, and logic of a restraint. The object is to see whether the experience of the market has been so clear, or necessarily will be, that a confident conclusion about the principal tendency of a restriction will follow from a quick (or at least quicker) look, in place of a more sedulous one.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“an observer with even a rudimentary understanding of economics could conclude that the arrangements in question would have an anticompetitive effect on customers and markets.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[B]efore a theoretical claim of anticompetitive effects can justify shifting to a defendant the burden to show empirical evidence of procompetitive effects, as quick-look analysis in effect requires, there must be some indication that the court making the decision has properly identified the theoretical basis for the anticompetitive effects and considered whether the effects actually are anticompetitive. Where, as here, the circumstances of the restriction are somewhat complex, assumption alone will not do.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.