Federal Trade Commission v. Phoebe Putney Health System, Inc.
Supreme Court
133 S. Ct. 1003 (2013)
Phoebe Putney Health System, Inc. (defendant) owned the dominant hospital in Doughtery County, Georgia, and arranged for the local Hospital Authority of Albany-Dougherty County (co-defendant) to purchase the county's only other hospital, Palmyra, using PPHS's own funds, and then lease Palmyra back to PPHS for $1 a year -- a structure that effectively gave PPHS a monopoly on hospital services in the area. The Authority derived its power to acquire and lease hospitals from a state constitutional amendment meant to increase access to affordable health care. The FTC (plaintiff) sued alleging antitrust violations, the Authority claimed state-action immunity, and the district court agreed, prompting the FTC's appeal.
Whether a substate entity's general statutory power to purchase and lease hospitals clearly articulates a state policy authorizing anticompetitive hospital mergers sufficient for state-action antitrust immunity.