Today the Supreme Court, by 5-4, reversed a ruling that upheld certification of an antitrust case against Comcast as a class action. The majority disagreed with the district court and court of appeals on whether the plaintiffs' damages model showed class-wide losses from Comcast's efforts to thwart "overbuilder" competition in the Philadelphia area.

Justice Scalia wrote the majority opinion, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito joined.

Blawgletter understands that Justices Ginsburg and Breyer took the unusual, if not extraordinary, steps of writing a joint dissent and reading it this morning from the bench. Justices Sotomayor and Kagan joined in the dissenting opinion.

The dissent urged that the Court should have dismissed the writ as improvidently granted and, failing that, should have affirmed the Third Circuit.

Class cousnel respectfully disagree with the majority's ruling. We look forward to satisfying the Court's narrow methodological concerns on remand to the trial court and to trying the case on the merits as soon as practicable.

I had the honor of arguing the case for the class in November. You hate to lose, but it was a terrific experience.