Jefferson Parish Hospital District No. 2 v. Hyde , 104 S. Ct. 1551 ( 1984 )

Justice Stevens

delivered the opinion of the Court.

At issue in this case is the validity of an exclusive contract between a hospital and a firm of anesthesiologists. We must decide whether the contract gives rise to a per se violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act¹ because every patient undergoing surgery at the hospital must use the services of one firm of anesthesiologists, and, if not, whether the contract is nevertheless illegal because it unreasonably restrains competition among anesthesiologists.

In July 1977, respondent Edwin G. Hyde, a board-certified anesthesiologist, applied for admission to the medical staff of East Jefferson Hospital. The credentials committee and the medical staff executive committee recommended approval, but the hospital board denied the application because the hospital was a party to a contract providing that all anesthesio-logical services required by the hospital’s patients would be performed by Roux & Associates, a professional medical corporation. Respondent then commenced this action seeking a declaratory judgment that the contract is unlawful and an injunction ordering petitioners to appoint him to the hospital staff.² After trial, the District Court denied relief, finding that the anticompetitive consequences of the Roux contract were minimal and outweighed by benefits in the form of improved patient care. 513 F. Supp. 532 (ED La. 1981). The Court of Appeals reversed because it was persuaded that the contract was illegal “per se. ” 686 F. 2d 286 (CA5 1982). We granted certiorari, 460 U. S. 1021 (1983), and now reverse.

I

In February 1971, shortly before East Jefferson Hospital opened, it entered into an “Anesthesiology Agreement” with Roux & Associates (Roux), a firm that had recently been organized by Dr. Kermit Roux. The contract provided that any anesthesiologist designated by Roux would be admitted to the hospital’s medical staff. The hospital agreed to provide the space, equipment, maintenance, and other supporting services necessary to operate the anesthesiology department. It also agreed to purchase all necessary drugs and other supplies. All nursing personnel required by the anesthesia department were to be supplied by the hospital, but Roux had the right to approve their selection and retention.³ The hospital agreed to “restrict the use of its anesthesia department to Roux & Associates and [that] no other persons, parties or entities shall perform such services within the Hospital for the ter[m] of this contract.” App. 19.⁴

The 1971 contract provided for a 1-year term automatically renewable for successive 1-year periods unless either party elected to terminate. In 1976, a second written contract was executed containing most of the provisions of the 1971 agreement. Its term was five years and the clause excluding other anesthesiologists from the hospital was deleted;⁵ the hospital nevertheless continued to regard itself as committed to a closed anesthesiology department. Only Roux was permitted to practice anesthesiology at the hospital. At the time of trial the department included four anesthesiologists. The hospital usually employed 13 or 14 certified registered nurse anesthetists.⁶

The exclusive contract had an impact on two different segments of the economy: consumers of medical services, and providers of anesthesiological services. Any consumer of medical services who elects to have an operation performed at East Jefferson Hospital may not employ any anesthesiologist not associated with Roux. No anesthesiologists except those employed by Roux may practice at East Jefferson.

There are at least 20 hospitals in the New Orleans metropolitan area and about 70 percent of the patients living in Jefferson Parish go to hospitals other than East Jefferson. Because it regarded the entire New Orleans metropolitan area as the relevant geographic market in which hospitals compete, this evidence convinced the District Court that East Jefferson does not possess any significant “market power”; therefore it concluded that petitioners could not use the Roux contract to anticompetitive ends.⁷ The same evidence led the Court of Appeals to draw a different conclusion. Noting that 30 percent of the residents of the parish go to East Jefferson Hospital, and that in fact “patients tend to choose hospitals by location rather than price or quality,” the Court of Appeals concluded that the relevant geographic market was the East Bank of Jefferson Parish. 686 F. 2d, at 290. The conclusion that East Jefferson Hospital possessed market power in that area was buttressed by the facts that the prevalence of health insurance eliminates a patient’s incentive to compare costs, that the patient is not sufficiently informed to compare quality, and that family convenience tends to magnify the importance of location.⁸

The Court of Appeals held that the case involves a “tying arrangement” because the “users of the hospital’s operating rooms (the tying product) are also compelled to purchase the hospital’s chosen anesthesia service (the tied product).” Id., at 289. Having defined the relevant geographic market for the tying product as the East Bank of Jefferson Parish, the court held that the hospital possessed “sufficient market power in the tying market to coerce purchasers of the tied product.” Id., at 291. Since the purchase of the tied product constituted a “not insubstantial amount of interstate commerce,” under the Court of Appeals’ reading of our decision in Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U. S. 1, 11 (1958), the tying arrangement was therefore illegal “per se.”⁹

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Certain types of contractual arrangements are deemed unreasonable as a matter of law.¹⁰ The character of the restraint produced by such an arrangement is considered a sufficient basis for presuming unreasonableness without the necessity of any analysis of the market context in which the arrangement may be found.¹¹ A price-fixing agreement between competitors is the classic example of such an arrangement. Arizona v. Maricopa County Medical Society, 457 U. S. 332, 343-348 (1982). It is far too late in the history of our antitrust jurisprudence to question the proposition that certain tying arrangements pose an unacceptable risk of stifling competition and therefore are unreasonable “per se.”¹² The rule was first enunciated in International Salt Co. v. United States, 332 U. S. 392, 396 (1947),¹³ and has been endorsed by this Court many times since.¹⁴ The rule also reflects congressional policies underlying the antitrust laws. In enacting § 3 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, 15 U. S. C. § 14, Congress expressed great concern about the anti-competitive character of tying arrangements. See H. R. Rep. No. 627, 63d Cong., 2d Sess., 10-13 (1914); S. Rep. No. 698, 63d Cong., 2d Sess., 6-9 (1914).¹⁵ While this case does not arise under the Clayton Act, the congressional finding made therein concerning the competitive consequences of tying is illuminating, and must be respected.¹⁶

It is clear, however, that not every refusal to sell two products separately can be said to restrain competition. If each of the products may be purchased separately in a competitive market, one seller’s decision to sell the two in a single package imposes no unreasonable restraint on either market, particularly if competing suppliers are free to sell either the entire package or its several parts.¹⁷ For example, we have written that “if one of a dozen food stores in a community were to refuse to sell flour unless the buyer also took sugar it would hardly tend to restrain competition in sugar if its competitors were ready and able to sell flour by itself.” Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U. S., at 7.¹⁸ Buyers often find package sales attractive; a seller’s decision to offer such packages can merely be an attempt to compete effectively — conduct that is entirely consistent with the Sherman Act. See Fortner Enterprises v. United States Steel Corp., 394 U. S. 495, 517-518 (1969) (Fortner I) (White, J., dissenting); id., at 524-525 (Fortas, J., dissenting).

Our cases have concluded that the essential characteristic of an invalid tying arrangement lies in the seller’s exploitation of its control over the tying product to force the buyer into the purchase of a tied product that the buyer either did not want at all, or might have preferred to purchase elsewhere on different terms. When such “forcing” is present, competition on the merits in the market for the tied item is restrained and the Sherman Act is violated.

“Basic to the faith that a free economy best promotes the public weal is that goods must stand the cold test of competition; that the public, acting through the market’s impersonal judgment, shall allocate the Nation’s resources and thus direct the course its economic development will take. ... By conditioning his sale of one commodity on the purchase of another, a seller coerces the abdication of buyers’ independent judgment as to the ‘tied’ product’s merits and insulates it from the competitive stresses of the open market. But any intrinsic superiority of the ‘tied’ product would convince freely choosing buyers to select it over others anyway.” Times-Picayune Publishing Co. v. United States, 345 U. S. 594, 605 (1953).¹⁹

Accordingly, we have condemned tying arrangements when the seller has some special ability — usually called “market power” — to force a purchaser to do something that he would not do in a competitive market. See United States Steel Corp. v. Fortner Enterprises, 429 U. S. 610, 620 (1977) (Fortner II); Fortner I, 394 U. S., at 503-504; United States v. Loew’s Inc., 371 U. S. 38, 45, 48, n. 5 (1962); Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U. S., at 6-7.²⁰ When “forcing” occurs, our cases have found the tying arrangement to be unlawful.

Thus, the law draws a distinction between the exploitation of market power by merely enhancing the price of the tying product, on the one hand, and by attempting to impose restraints on competition in the market for a tied product, on the other. When the seller’s power is just used to maximize its return in the tying product market, where presumably its product enjoys some justifiable advantage over its competitors, the competitive ideal of the Sherman Act is not necessarily compromised. But if that power is used to impair competition on the merits in another market, a potentially inferior product may be insulated from competitive pressures.²¹ This impairment could either harm existing competitors or create barriers to entry of new competitors in the market for the tied product, Fortner I, 394 U. S., at 509,²² and can increase the social costs of market power by facilitating price discrimination, thereby increasing monopoly profits over what they would be absent the tie, Fortner II, 429 U. S., at 617.²³ And from the standpoint of the consumer — whose interests the statute was especially intended to serve — the freedom to select the best bargain in the second market is impaired by his need to purchase the tying product, and perhaps by an inability to evaluate the true cost of either product when they are available only as a package.²⁴ In sum, to permit restraint of competition on the merits through tying arrangements would be, as we observed in Fortner II, to condone “the existence of power that a free market would not tolerate.” 429 U. S., at 617 (footnote omitted).

Per se condemnation — condemnation without inquiry into actual market conditions — is only appropriate if the existence of forcing is probable.²⁵ Thus, application of the per se rule focuses on the probability of anticompetitive consequences. Of course, as a threshold matter there must be a substantial potential for impact on competition in order to justify per se condemnation. If only a single purchaser were “forced” with respect to the purchase of a tied item, the resultant impact on competition would not be sufficient to warrant the concern of antitrust law. It is for this reason that we have refused to condemn tying arrangements unless a substantial volume of commerce is foreclosed thereby. See Fortner I, 394 U. S., at 501-502; Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U. S., at 6-7; Times-Picayune, 345 U. S., at 608-610; International Salt, 332 U. S., at 396. Similarly, when a purchaser is “forced” to buy a product he would not have otherwise bought even from another seller in the tied-product market, there can be no adverse impact on competition because no portion of the market which would otherwise have been available to other sellers has been foreclosed.

Once this threshold is surmounted, per se prohibition is appropriate if anticompetitive forcing is likely. For example, if the Government has granted the seller a patent or similar monopoly over a product, it is fair to presume that the inability to buy the product elsewhere gives the seller market power. United States v. Loew’s Inc., 371 U. S., at 45-47. Any effort to enlarge the scope of the patent monopoly by using the market power it confers to restrain competition in the market for a second product will undermine competition on the merits in that second market. Thus, the sale or lease of a patented item on condition that the buyer make all his purchases of a separate tied product from the patentee is unlawful. See United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U. S. 131, 156-159 (1948); International Salt, 332 U. S., at 395-396; International Business Machines Corp. v. United States, 298 U. S. 131 (1936).

The same strict rule is appropriate in other situations in which the existence of market power is probable. When the seller’s share of the market is high, see Times-Picayune Publishing Co. v. United States, 345 U. S., at 611-613, or when the seller offers a unique product that competitors are not able to offer, see Fortner I, 394 U. S., at 504-506, and n. 2, the Court has held that the likelihood that market power exists and is being used to restrain competition in a separate market is sufficient to make per se condemnation appropriate. Thus, in Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U. S. 1 (1958), we held that the railroad’s control over vast tracts of western real estate, although not itself unlawful, gave the railroad a unique kind of bargaining power that enabled it to tie the sales of that land to exclusive, long-term commitments that fenced out competition in the transportation market over a protracted period.²⁶ When, however, the seller does not have either the degree or the kind of market power that enables him to force customers to purchase a second, unwanted product in order to obtain the tying product, an antitrust violation can be established only by evidence of an unreasonable restraint on competition in the relevant market. See Fortner I, 394 U. S., at 499-500; Times-Picayune Publishing Co. v. United States, 345 U. S., at 614-615.

In sum, any inquiry into the validity of a tying arrangement must focus on the market or markets in which the two products are sold, for that is where the anticompetitive forcing has its impact. Thus, in this case our analysis of the tying issue must focus on the hospital’s sale of services to its patients, rather than its contractual arrangements with the providers of anesthesiological services. In making that analysis, we must consider whether petitioners are selling two separate products that may be tied together, and, if so, whether they have used their market power to force their patients to accept the tying arrangement.

III

The hospital has provided its patients with a package that includes the range of facilities and services required for a variety of surgical operations.²⁷ At East Jefferson Hospital the package includes the services of the anesthesiologist.²⁸ Petitioners argue that the package does not involve a tying arrangement at all — that they are merely providing a functionally integrated package of services.²⁹ Therefore, petitioners contend that it is inappropriate to apply principles concerning tying arrangements to this case.

Our cases indicate, however, that the answer to the question whether one or two products are involved turns not on the functional relation between them, but rather on the character of the demand for the two items.³⁰ In Times-Picayune Publishing Co. v. United States, 345 U. S. 594 (1953), the Court held that a tying arrangement was not present because the arrangement did not link two distinct markets for products that were distinguishable in the eyes of buyers.³¹ In Fortner I, the Court concluded that a sale involving two independent transactions, separately priced and purchased from the buyer’s perspective, was a tying arrangement.³² These cases make it clear that a tying arrangement cannot exist unless two separate product markets have been linked.

The requirement that two distinguishable product markets be involved follows from the underlying rationale of the rule against tying. The definitional question depends on whether the arrangement may have the type of competitive consequences addressed by the rule.³³ The answer to the question whether petitioners have utilized a tying arrangement must be based on whether there is a possibility that the economic effect of the arrangement is that condemned by the rule against tying — that petitioners have foreclosed competition on the merits in a product market distinct from the market for the tying item.³⁴ Thus, in this case no tying arrangement can exist unless there is a sufficient demand for the purchase of anesthesiological services separate from hospital services to identify a distinct product market in which it is efficient to offer anesthesiological services separately from hospital services.³⁵

Unquestionably, the anesthesiological component of the package offered by the hospital could be provided separately and could be selected either by the individual patient or by one of the patient’s doctors if the hospital did not insist on including anesthesiological services in the package it offers to its customers. As a matter of actual practice, anesthesiological services are billed separately from the hospital services petitioners provide. There was ample and uncontroverted testimony that patients or surgeons often request specific anesthesiologists to come to a hospital and provide anesthesia, and that the choice of an individual anesthesiologist separate from the choice of a hospital is particularly frequent in respondent’s specialty, obstetric anesthesiology.³⁶ The District Court found that “[t]he provision of anesthesia services is a medical service separate from the other services provided by the hospital.” 513 F. Supp., at 540.³⁷ The Court of Appeals agreed with this finding, and went on to observe: “[A]n anesthesiologist is normally selected by the surgeon, rather than the patient, based on familiarity gained through a working relationship. Obviously, the surgeons who practice at East Jefferson Hospital do not gain familiarity with any anesthesiologists other than Roux and Associates.” 686 F. 2d, at 291.³⁸ The record amply supports the conclusion that consumers differentiate between anesthesiological services and the other hospital services provided by petitioners.³⁹

Thus, the hospital’s requirement that its patients obtain necessary anesthesiological services from Roux combined the purchase of two distinguishable services in a single transaction.⁴⁰ Nevertheless, the fact that this case involves a required purchase of two services that would otherwise be purchased separately does not make the Roux contract illegal. As noted above, there is nothing inherently anticompetitive about packaged sales. Only if patients are forced to purchase Roux’s services as a result of the hospital’s market power would the arrangement have anticompetitive consequences. If no forcing is present, patients are free to enter a competing hospital and to use another anesthesiologist instead of Roux.⁴¹ The fact that petitioners’ patients are required to purchase two separate items is only the beginning of the appropriate inquiry.⁴²

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The question remains whether this arrangement involves the use of market power to force patients to buy services they would not otherwise purchase. Respondent’s only basis for invoking the per se rule against tying and thereby avoiding analysis of actual market conditions is by relying on the preference of persons residing in Jefferson Parish to go to East Jefferson, the closest hospital. A preference of this kind, however, is not necessarily probative of significant market power.

Seventy percent of the patients residing in Jefferson Parish enter hospitals other than East Jefferson. 513 F. Supp., at 539. Thus East Jefferson’s “dominance” over persons residing in Jefferson Parish is far from overwhelming.⁴³ The fact that a substantial majority of the parish’s residents elect not to enter East Jefferson means that the geographic data do not establish the kind of dominant market position that obviates the need for further inquiry into actual competitive conditions. The Court of Appeals acknowledged as much; it recognized that East Jefferson’s market share alone was insufficient as a basis to infer market power, and buttressed its conclusion by relying on “market imperfections”⁴⁴ that permit petitioners to charge noncompetitive prices for hospital services: the prevalence of third-party payment for health care costs reduces price competition, and a lack of adequate information renders consumers unable to evaluate the quality of the medical care provided by competing hospitals. 686 F. 2d, at 290.⁴⁵ While these factors may generate “market power” in some abstract sense,⁴⁶ they do not generáte the kind of market power that justifies condemnation of tying.

Tying arrangements need only be condemned if they restrain competition on the merits by forcing purchases that would not otherwise be made. A lack of price or quality competition does not create this type of forcing. If consumers lack price consciousness, that fact will not force them to take an anesthesiologist whose services they do not want— their indifference to price will have no impact on their willingness or ability to go to another hospital where they can utilize the services of the anesthesiologist of their choice. Similarly, if consumers cannot evaluate the quality of an-esthesiological services, it follows that they are indifferent between certified anesthesiologists even in the absence of a tying arrangement — such an arrangement cannot be said to have foreclosed a choice that would have otherwise been made “on the merits.”

Thus, neither of the “market imperfections” relied upon by the Court of Appeals forces consumers to take anesthesiological services they would not select in the absence of a tie. It is safe to assume that every patient undergoing a surgical operation needs the services of an anesthesiologist; at least this record contains no evidence that the hospital “forced” any such services on unwilling patients.⁴⁷ The record therefore does not provide a basis for applying the per se rule against tying to this arrangement.

V

In order to prevail in the absence of per se liability, respondent has the burden of proving that the Roux contract violated the Sherman Act because it unreasonably restrained competition. That burden necessarily involves an inquiry into the actual effect of the exclusive contract on competition among anesthesiologists. This competition takes place in a market that has not been defined. The market is not necessarily the same as the market in which hospitals compete in offering services to patients; it may encompass competition among anesthesiologists for exclusive contracts such as the Roux contract and might be statewide or merely local.⁴⁸ There is, however, insufficient evidence in this record to provide a basis for finding that the Roux contract, as it actually operates in the market, has unreasonably restrained competition. The record sheds little light on how this arrangement affected consumer demand for separate arrangements with a specific anesthesiologist.⁴⁹ The evidence indicates that some surgeons and patients preferred respondent’s services to those of Roux, but there is no evidence that any patient who was sophisticated enough to know the difference between two anesthesiologists was not also able to go to a hospital that would provide him with the anesthesiologist of his choice.⁵⁰

In sum, all that the record establishes is that the choice of anesthesiologists at East Jefferson has been limited to one of the four doctors who are associated with Roux and therefore have staff privileges.⁵¹ Even if Roux did not have an exclusive contract, the range of alternatives open to the patient would be severely limited by the nature of the transaction and the hospital’s unquestioned right to exercise some control over the identity and the number of doctors to whom it accords staff privileges. If respondent is admitted to the staff of East Jefferson, the range of choice will be enlarged from four to five doctors, but the most significant restraints on the patient’s freedom to select a specific anesthesiologist will nevertheless remain.⁵² Without a showing of actual adverse effect on competition, respondent cannot make out a case under the antitrust laws, and no such showing has been made.

VI

Petitioners’ closed policy may raise questions of medical ethics,⁵³ and may have inconvenienced some patients who would prefer to have their anesthesia administered by someone other than a member of Roux & Associates, but it does not have the obviously unreasonable impact on purchasers that has characterized the tying arrangements that this Court has branded unlawful. There is no evidence that the price, the quality, or the supply or demand for either the “tying product” or the “tied product” involved in this case has been adversely affected by the exclusive contract between Roux and the hospital. It may well be true that the contract made it necessary for Dr. Hyde and others to practice elsewhere, rather than at East Jefferson. But there has been no showing that the market as a whole has been affected at all by the contract. Indeed, as we previously noted, the record tells us very little about the market for the services of anesthesiologists. Yet that is the market in which the exclusive contract has had its principal impact. There is simply no showing here of the kind of restraint on competition that is prohibited by the Sherman Act. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.⁵⁴

It is so ordered.

1 Section 1 of the Sherman Act states: “Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal. . . .” 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1. Respondent has standing to enforce § 1 by virtue of § 4 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 15.

2 In addition to seeking relief under the Sherman Act, respondent’s complaint alleged violations of 42 U. S. C. § 1983 and state law. The District Court rejected these claims. The Court of Appeals passed only on the Sherman Act claim.

3 The contract required all of the physicians employed by Roux to confine their practice of anesthesiology to East Jefferson.

4 Originally Roux agreed to provide at least two full-time anesthesiologists acceptable to the hospital's credentials committee. Roux agreed to furnish additional anesthesiologists as necessary. The contract also provided that Roux would designate one of its qualified anesthesiologists to serve as the head of the hospital’s department of anesthesia.

The fees for anesthesiological services are billed separately to the patients by the hospital. They cover the hospital’s costs and the professional services provided by Roux. After a deduction of eight percent to provide a reserve for uncollectible accounts, the fees are divided equally between Roux and the hospital.

5 “Roux testified that he requested the omission of the exclusive language in his 1976 contract because he believes a surgeon or patient is entitled to the services of the anesthesiologist of his choice. He admitted that he and others in his group did work outside East Jefferson following the 1976 contract but felt he was not in violation of the contract in light of the changes made in it.” 513 F. Supp. 532, 537 (ED La. 1981).

6 Approximately 875 operations are performed at the hospital each month; as many as 12 or 13 operating rooms may be in use at one time.

7 The District Court found:

“The impact on commerce resulting from the East Jefferson contract is minimal. The contract is restricted in effect to one hospital in an area containing at least twenty others providing the same surgical services. It would be a different situation if Dr. Roux had exclusive contracts in several hospitals in the relevant market. As pointed out by plaintiff, the majority of surgeons have privileges at more than one hospital in the area. They have the option of admitting their patients to another hospital where they can select the anesthesiologist of their choice. Similarly a patient can go to another hospital if he is not satisfied with the physicians available at East Jefferson.” Id., at 541.

8 While the Court of Appeals did discuss the impact of the contract upon patients, it did not discuss its impact upon anesthesiologists. The District Court had referred to evidence that in the entire State of Louisiana there are 156 anesthesiologists and 345 hospitals with operating rooms. The record does not tell us how many of the hospitals in the New Orleans metropolitan area have “open” anesthesiology departments and how many have closed departments. Respondent, for example, practices with two other anesthesiologists at a hospital which has an open department; he previously practiced for several years in a different New Orleans hospital and, prior to that, had practiced in Florida. The record does not tell us whether there is a shortage or a surplus of anesthesiologists in any part of the country, or whether they are thriving or starving.

9 The Court of Appeals rejected as “clearly erroneous” the District Court's finding that the exclusive contract was justified by quality considerations. See 686 F. 2d, at 292.

10 “For example, where a complaint charges that the defendants have engaged in price fixing, or have concertedly refused to deal with nonmembers of an association, or have licensed a patented device on condition that unpatented materials be employed in conjunction with the patented device, then the amount of commerce involved is immaterial because such restraints are illegal per se.” United States v. Columbia Steel Co., 334 U. S. 495, 522-523 (1948) (footnotes omitted).

11 See, e. g., Continental T. V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U. S. 36, 49-50 (1977).

12 The District Court intimated that the principles of per se liability might not apply to cases involving the medical profession. 513 F. Supp., at 543-544. The Court of Appeals rejected this approach. 686 F. 2d, at 292-294. In this Court, petitioners “assume” that the same principles apply to the provision of professional services as apply to other trades or businesses. Brief for Petitioners 4, n. 2. See generally National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U. S. 679 (1978).

13 The roots of the doctrine date at least to Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Universal Film Co., 243 U. S. 502 (1917), a case holding that the sale of a patented film projector could not be conditioned on its use only with the patentee’s films, since this would have the effect of extending the scope of the patent monopoly. See also Henry v. Dick Co., 224 U. S. 1, 70-73 (1912) (White, C. J., dissenting).

14 See United States Steel Corp. v. Fortner Enterprises, 429 U. S. 610, 619-621 (1977); Fortner Enterprises v. United States Steel Corp., 394 U. S. 495, 498-499 (1969); White Motor Co. v. United States, 372 U. S. 253, 262 (1963); Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U. S. 294, 330 (1962); United States v. Loew’s Inc., 371 U. S. 38 (1962); Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U. S. 1, 5 (1958); Black v. Magnolia Liquor Co., 355 U. S. 24, 25 (1957); Times-Picayune Publishing Co. v. United States, 345 U. S. 594, 608-609 (1953); Standard Oil Co. of California v. United States, 337 U. S. 293, 305-306 (1949).

15 See also 51 Cong. Rec. 9072 (1914) (remarks of Rep. Webb); id., at 9084 (remarks of Rep. Madden); id., at 9090 (remarks of Rep. Mitchell); id., at 9160-9164 (remarks of Rep. Floyd); id., at 9184-9185 (remarks of Rep. Helvering); id., at 9409 (remarks of Rep. Gardner); id., at 9410 (remarks of Rep. Mitchell); id., at 9553-9554 (remarks of Rep. Barkley); id., at 14091-14097 (remarks of Sen. Reed); id., at 14094 (remarks of Sen. Walsh); id., at 14209 (remarks of Sen. Shields); id., at 14226 (remarks of Sen. Reed); id., at 14268 (remarks of Sen. Reed); id., at 14599 (remarks of Sen. White); id., at 15991 (remarks of Sen. Martine); id., at 16146 (remarks of Sen. Walsh); Spivaek, The Chicago School Approach to Single Firm Exercises of Monopoly Power: A Response, 52 Antitrust L. J. 651, 664-665 (1983). For example, the House Report on the Clayton Act stated:

“The public is compelled to pay a higher price and local customers are put to the inconvenience of securing many commodities in other communities or through mail-order houses that can not be procured at their local stores. The price is raised as an inducement. This is the local effect. Where the concern making these contracts is already great and powerful, such as the United Shoe Machinery Co., the American Tobacco Co., and the General Film Co., the exclusive or ‘tying’ contract made with local dealers becomes one of the greatest agencies and instrumentalities of monopoly ever devised by the brain of man. It completely shuts out competitors, not only from trade in which they are already engaged, but from the opportunities to build up trade in any community where these great and powerful combinations are operating under this system and practice. By this method and practice the Shoe Machinery Co. has built up a monopoly that owns and controls the entire machinery now being used by all great shoe-manufacturing houses of the United States. No independent manufacturer of shoe machines has the slightest opportunity to build up any considerable trade in this country while this condition obtains. If a manufacturer who is using machines of the Shoe Machinery Co. were to purchase and place a machine manufaeturered by any independent company in his establishment, the Shoe Machinery Co. could under its contracts withdraw all their machinery from the establishment of the shoe manufacturer and thereby wreck the business of the manufacturer. The General Film Co., by the same method practiced by the Shoe Machinery Co. under the lease system, has practically destroyed all competition and acquired a virtual monopoly of all films manufactured and sold in the United States. When we consider contracts of sales made under this system, the result to the consumer, the general public, and the local dealer and his business is even worse than under the lease system.” H. R. Rep. No. 627, 63d Cong., 2d Sess., 12-13 (1914).

Similarly, Representative Mitchell said: “[Monopoly has been built up by these ‘tying’ contracts so that in order to get one machine one must take all of the essential machines, or practically all. Independent companies who have sought to enter the field have found that the markets have been preempted .... The manufacturers do not want to break their contracts with these giant monopolies, because, if they should attempt to install machinery, their business might be jeopardized and all of the machinery now leased by these giant monopolies would be removed from their places of business. No situation cries more urgently for relief than does this situation, and this bill seeks to prevent exclusive ‘tying’ contracts that have brought about a monopoly, alike injurious to the small dealers, to the manufacturers, and grossly unfair to those who seek to enter the field of competition and to the millions of consumers.” 51 Cong. Rec. 9090 (1914).

16 See generally, e. g., Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., 452 U. S. 264, 276-277 (1981); New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U. S. 297, 303-304 (1976) (per curiam).

17 “Of course where the buyer is free to take either product by itself there is no tying problem even though the seller may also offer the two items as a unit at a single price.” Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U. S., at 6, n. 4.

18 Thus, we have held that a seller who ties the sale of houses to the provision of credit simply as a way of effectively competing in a competitive market does not violate the antitrust laws. “The unusual credit bargain offered to Fortner proves nothing more than a willingness to provide cheap financing in order to sell expensive houses.” United States Steel Corp. v. Fortner Enterprises, 429 U. S., at 622 (footnote omitted).

19 Accord, Fortner I, 394 U. S., at 508-509; Atlantic Refining Co. v. FTC, 381 U. S. 357, 369-371 (1965); United States v. Loew’s Inc., 371 U. S., at 44-45; Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U. S., at 6. For example, Justice White has written:

“There is general agreement in the cases and among commentators that the fundamental restraint against which the tying proscription is meant to guard is the use of power over one product to attain power over another, or otherwise to distort freedom of trade and competition in the second product. This distortion injures the buyers of the second product, who because of their preference for the seller’s brand of the first are artificially forced to make a less than optimal choice in the second. And even if the customer is indifferent among brands of the second product and therefore loses nothing by agreeing to use the seller’s brand of the second in order to get his brand of the first, such tying agreements may work significant restraints on competition in the tied product. The tying seller may be working toward a monopoly position in the tied product and, even if he is not, the practice of tying forecloses other sellers of the tied product and makes it more difficult for new firms to enter that market. They must be prepared not only to match existing sellers of the tied product in price and quality, but to offset the attraction of the tying product itself. Even if this is possible through simultaneous entry into production of the tying product, entry into both markets is significantly more expensive than simple entry into the tied market, and shifting buying habits in the tied product is considerably more cumbersome and less responsive to variations in competitive offers. In addition to these anticompetitive effects in the tied product, tying arrangements may be used to evade price control in the tying product through clandestine transfer of the profit to the tied product; they may be used as a counting device to effect price discrimination; and they may be used to force a full line of products on the customer so as to extract more easily from him a monopoly return on one unique product in the line.” Fortner I, 394 U. S., at 512-514 (dissenting opinion) (footnotes omitted).

20 This type of market power has sometimes been referred to as “leverage.” Professors Areeda and Turner provide a definition that suits present purposes. “ ‘Leverage’ is loosely defined here as a supplier’s power to induce his customer for one product to buy a second product from him that would not otherwise be purchased solely on the merit of that second product.” 5 P. Areeda & D. Turner, Antitrust Law ¶ 1134a, p. 202 (1980).

21 See Report of the Attorney General’s National Committee to Study the Antitrust Laws 145 (1955); Craswell, Tying Requirements in Competitive Markets: The Consumer Protection Issues, 62 B. U. L. Rev. 661, 666-668 (1982); Slawson, A Stronger, Simpler Tie-In Doctrine, 25 Antitrust Bull. 671, 676-684 (1980); Turner, The Validity of Tying Arrangements under the Antitrust Laws, 72 Harv. L. Rev. 50, 60-62 (1958).

22 See 3 Areeda & Turner, supra n. 20, ¶733e (1978); C. Kaysen & D. Turner, Antitrust Policy 157 (1959); L. Sullivan, Law of Antitrust § 156 (1977); O. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications 111 (1975); Pearson, Tying Arrangements and Antitrust Policy, 60 Nw. U. L. Rev. 626, 637-638 (1965).

23 Sales of the tied item can be used to measure demand for the tying item; purchasers with greater needs for the tied item make larger purchases and in effect must pay a higher price to obtain the tying item. See P. Areeda, Antitrust Analysis ¶ 533 (2d ed. 1974); R. Posner, Antitrust Law 173-180 (1976); Sullivan, supra n. 22, § 156; Bowman, Tying Arrangements and the Leverage Problem, 67 Yale L. J. 19 (1957); Burstein, A Theory of Full-Line Forcing, 55 Nw. U. L. Rev. 62 (1960); Dam, Fortner Enterprises v. United States Steel: “Neither a Borrower, Nor a Lender Be,” 1969 S. Ct. Rev. 1, 15-16; Ferguson, Tying Arrangements and Reciprocity: An Economic Analysis, 30 Law & Contemp. Prob. 552, 554-558 (1965); Markovits, Tie-Ins, Reciprocity, and the Leverage Theory, 76 Yale L. J. 1397 (1967); Pearson, supra n. 22, at 647-653; Sidak, Debunking Predatory Innovation, 83 Colum. L. Rev. 1121, 1127-1131 (1983); Stigler, United States v. Loew’s Inc.: A Note on Block-Booking, 1963 S. Ct. Rev. 152.

24 Especially where market imperfections exist, purchasers may not be fully sensitive to the price or quality implications of a tying arrangement, and hence it may impede competition on the merits. See Craswell, supra n. 21, at 675-679.

25 The rationale for per se rules in part is to avoid a burdensome inquiry into actual market conditions in situations where the likelihood of anti-competitive conduct is so great as to render unjustified the costs of determining whether the particular case at bar involves anticompetitive conduct. See, e. g., Arizona v. Maricopa County Medical Society, 457 U. S. 332, 350-351 (1982).

26 “As pointed out before, the defendant was initially granted large acreages by Congress in the several Northwestern States through which its lines now run. This land was strategically located in checkerboard fashion amid private holdings and within economic distance of transportation facilities. Not only the testimony of various witnesses but common sense makes it evident that this particular land was often prized by those who purchased or leased it and was frequently essential to their business activities. In disposing of its holdings the defendant entered into contracts of sale or lease covering at least several million acres of land which included ‘preferential routing’ clauses. The very existence of this host of tying arrangements is itself compelling evidence of the defendant’s great power, at least where, as here, no other explanation has been offered for the existence of these restraints. The ‘preferential routing’ clauses conferred no benefit on the purchasers or lessees. While they got the land they wanted by yielding their freedom to deal with competing carriers, the defendant makes no claim that it came any cheaper than if the restrictive clauses had been omitted. In fact any such price reduction in return for rail shipments would have quite plainly constituted an unlawful rebate to the shipper. So far as the Railroad was concerned its purpose obviously was to fence out competitors, to stifle competition.” 356 U. S., at 7-8 (footnote omitted).

27 The physical facilities include the operating room, the recovery room, and the hospital room where the patient stays before and after the operation. The services include those provided by staff physicians, such as radiologists or pathologists, and interns, nurses, dietitians, pharmacists, and laboratory technicians.

28 It is essential to differentiate between the Roux contract and the legality of the contract between the hospital and its patients. The Roux contract is nothing more than an arrangement whereby Roux supplies all of the hospital’s needs for anesthesiological services. That contract raises only an exclusive-dealing question, see n. 51, infra. The issue here is whether the hospital’s insistence that its patients purchase anesthesiological services from Roux creates a tying arrangement.

29 See generally Dolan & Ralston, Hospital Admitting Privileges and the Sherman Act, 18 Hous. L. Rev. 707, 756-758 (1981); Kissam, Webber, Bigus, & Holzgraefe, Antitrust and Hospital Privileges: Testing the Conventional Wisdom, 70 Calif. L. Rev. 595, 666-667 (1982).

30 The fact that anesthesiological services are functionally linked to the other services provided by the hospital is not in itself sufficient to remove the Roux contract from the realm of tying arrangements. We have often found arrangements involving functionally linked products at least one of which is useless without the other to be prohibited tying devices. See Mercoid Corp. v. Mid-Continent Co., 320 U. S. 661 (1944) (heating system and stoker switch); Morton Salt Co. v. Suppiger Co., 314 U. S. 488 (1942) (salt machine and salt); International Salt Co. v. United States, 332 U. S. 392 (1947) (same); Leitch Mfg. Co. v. Barber Co., 302 U. S. 458 (1938) (process patent and material used in the patented process); International Business Machines Corp. v. United States, 298 U. S. 131 (1936) (tabulators and tabulating punch cards); Carbice Corp. v. American Patents Development Corp., 283 U. S. 27 (1931) (ice cream transportation package and coolant); FTC v. Sinclair Refining Co., 261 U. S. 463 (1923) (gasoline and underground tanks and pumps); United Shoe Machinery Co. v. United States, 258 U. S. 451 (1922) (shoe machinery and supplies, maintenance, and peripheral machinery); United States v. Jerrold Electronics Corp., 187 F. Supp. 545, 558-560 (ED Pa. 1960) (components of television antennas), aff’d, 365 U. S. 567 (1961) (per curiam). In fact, in some situations the functional link between the two items may enable the seller to maximize its monopoly return on the tying item as a means of charging a higher rent or purchase price to a larger user of the tying item. See n. 23, supra.

31 “The District Court determined that the Times-Picayune and the States were separate and distinct newspapers, though published under single ownership and control. But that readers consciously distinguished between these two publications does not necessarily imply that advertisers bought separate and distinct products when insertions were placed in the Times-Picayune and the States. So to conclude here would involve speculation that advertisers bought space motivated by considerations other than customer coverage; that their media selections, in effect, rested on generic qualities differentiating morning from evening readers in New Orleans. Although advertising space in the Times-Picayune, as the sole morning daily, was doubtless essential to blanket coverage of the local newspaper readership, nothing in the record suggests that advertisers viewed the city’s newspaper readers, morning or evening, as other than fungible customer potential. We must assume, therefore, that the readership ‘bought’ by advertisers in the Times-Picayune was the selfsame ‘product’ sold by the States and, for that matter, the Item.

“The factual departure from the ‘tying’ cases then becomes manifest. The common core of the adjudicated unlawful tying arrangements is the forced purchase of a second distinct commodity with the desired purchase of a dominant ‘tying’ product, resulting in economic harm to competition in the ‘tied’ market. Here, however, two newspapers under single ownership at the same place, time, and terms sell indistinguishable products to advertisers; no dominant ‘tying’ product exists (in fact, since space in neither the Times-Picayune nor the States can be bought alone, one may be viewed as ‘tying’ as the other); no leverage in one market excludes sellers in the second, because for present purposes the products are identical and the market the same.” 345 U. S., at 613-614 (footnote omitted).

32 “There is, at the outset of every tie-in case, including the familiar cases involving physical goods, the problem of determining whether two separate products are in fact involved. In the usual sale on credit the seller, a single individual or corporation, simply makes an agreement determining when and how much he will be paid for his product. In such a sale the credit may constitute such an inseparable part of the purchase price for the item that the entire transaction could be considered to involve only a single product. It will be time enough to pass on the issue of credit sales when a case involving it actually arises. Sales such as that are a far cry from the arrangement involved here, where the credit is provided by one corporation on condition that a product be purchased from a separate corporation, and where the borrower contracts to obtain a large sum of money over and above that needed to pay the seller for the physical products purchased. Whatever the standards for determining exactly when a transaction involves only a ‘single product,’ we cannot see how an arrangement such as that present in this case could ever be said to involve only a single product.” 394 U. S., at 507 (footnote omitted).

33 Professor Dam has pointed out that the per se rule against tying can be coherent only if tying is defined by reference to the economic effect of the arrangement.

“[T]he definitional question is hard to separate from the question when tie-ins are harmful. Yet the decisions, in adopting the per se rule, have attempted to flee from that economic question by ruling that tying arrangements are presumptively harmful, at least whenever certain nominal threshold standards on power and foreclosure are met. The weakness of the per se methodology is that it places crucial importance on the definition of the practice. Once an arrangement falls within the defined limits, no justification will be heard. But a per se rule gives no economic standards for defining the practice. To treat the definitional question as an abstract inquiry into whether one or two products is involved is thus to compound the weakness of the per se approach.” Dam, supra n. 23, at 19.

34 Of course, the Sherman Act does not prohibit “tying”; it prohibits “contract[s]... in restraint of trade.” Thus, in a sense the question whether this case involves “tying” is beside the point. The legality of petitioners’ conduct depends on its competitive consequences, not on whether it can be labeled “tying.” If the competitive consequences of this arrangement are not those to which the per se rule is addressed, then it should not be condemned irrespective of its label.

35 This approach is consistent with that taken by a number of lower courts. See Moore v. Jas. H. Matthews & Co., 550 F. 2d 1207, 1214-1215 (CA9 1977); Siegel v. Chicken Delight, Inc., 448 F. 2d 43, 48-49 (CA9 1971), cert. denied, 405 U. S. 955 (1972); Washington Gas Light Co. v. Virginia Electric & Power Co., 438 F. 2d 248, 253 (CA4 1971); Susser v. Carvel Corp., 332 F. 2d 505, 514 (CA2 1964), cert. dism’d, 381 U. S. 125 (1965); United States v. Mercedes-Benz of North America, Inc., 517 F. Supp. 1369, 1379-1381 (ND Cal. 1981); In re Data General Corp. Antitrust Litigation, 490 F. Supp. 1089, 1104-1110 (ND Cal. 1980); Jones v. 247 East Chestnut Properties, 1975-2 Trade Cases ¶ 60, 491, pp. 67, 162-67, 163 (ND Ill. 1974); N. W. Controls, Inc. v. Outboard Marine Corp., 333 F. Supp. 493, 501-504 (Del. 1971); Teleflex Industrial Products, Inc. v. Brunswick Corp., 293 F. Supp. 107, 109, and n. 6 (ED Pa. 1968). See generally Ross, The Single Product Issue in Antitrust Tying: A Functional Approach, 23 Emory L. J. 963 (1974); Wheeler, Some Observations on Tie-ins, the Single-Product Defense, Exclusive Dealing and Regulated Industries, 60 Calif. L. Rev. 1557, 1558-1567, 1572-1573 (1972); Note, Product Separability: A Workable Standard to Identify Tie-In Arrangements Under the Antitrust Laws, 46 S. Cal. L. Rev. 160 (1972). See also Fortner I, 394 U. S., at 525 (Fortas, J., dissenting); Note, Tying Arrangements and the Single Product Issue, 31 Ohio St. L. J. 861 (1970).

36 Testimony that patients and their physicians frequently do differentiate between hospital services and anesthesiological services, and request specific anesthesiologists, was provided by Dr. Roux, Tr. 17, 20 (May 15, 1980, afternoon session), Dr. Hyde, id., at 68-69,72-74 (May 16,1980), and other anesthesiologists as well, see id., at 64, 87-88 (May 15, 1980, afternoon session) (testimony of Dr. Charles Eckert); id., at 25-30, 33-34 (May 16, 1980) (testimony of Dr. John Adriani). There was no testimony that patients or their surgeons do not differentiate between anesthesiological services and hospital services when making purchasing decisions. As a statistical matter, only 27 percent of anesthesiologists have financial relationships with hospitals. American Medical Association, Socioeconomic Characteristics of Medical Practice: 1983, p. 12 (1983). In this respect anesthesiologists may differ from radiologists, pathologists, and other types of hospital-based physicians (HBPs). “In some respects anesthesiologists are more akin to office-based MDs (particularly surgeons) than other HBPs. Anesthesiologists’ outputs are more discrete, and these HBPs are predominantly fee-for-serviee practitioners who directly provide services to patients.” Steinwald, Hospital-Based Physicians: Current Issues and Descriptive Evidence, Health Care Financing Rev. 63, 69 (Summer 1980). See also United States v. American Society of Anesthesiologists, Inc., 473 F. Supp. 147, 150 (SDNY 1979) (“By 1957 the salaried anesthesiologist had become the exception. Anesthesiologists began to establish independent practices and were able to obtain hospital privileges upon the same terms and conditions as other clinicians”).

37 Accordingly, in its conclusions of law the District Court treated the case as involving a tying arrangement. 513 F. Supp., at 542.

38 Petitioners do not challenge these findings of the District Court and the Court of Appeals.

39 One of the most frequently cited statements on this subject was made by Judge Van Dusen in United States v. Jerrold Electronics Corp., 187 F. Supp. 545 (ED Pa. 1960), aff’d, 365 U. S. 567 (1961) (percuriam). While this statement was specifically made with respect to § 3 of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. § 14, its analysis is also applicable to § 1 of the Sherman Act, since with respect to the definition of tying the standards used by the two statutes are the same. See Times-Picayune, 345 U. S., at 608-609.

“There are several facts presented in this record which tend to show that a community television antenna system cannot properly be characterized as a single product. Others who entered the community antenna field offered all of the equipment necessary for a complete system, but none of them sold their gear exclusively as a single package as did Jerrold. The record also establishes that the number of pieces in each system varied considerably so that hardly any two versions of the alleged product were the same. Furthermore, the customer was charged for each item of equipment and not a lump sum for the total system. Finally, while Jerrold had cable and antennas to sell which were manufactured by other concerns, it only required that the electronic equipment in the system be bought from it.” 187 F. Supp., at 559.

The record here shows that other hospitals often permit anesthesiological services to be purchased separately, that anesthesiologists are not fungible in that the services provided by each are not precisely the same, that anesthesiological services are billed separately, and that the hospital required purchases from Roux even though other anesthesiologists were available and Roux had no objection to their receiving staff privileges at East Jefferson. Therefore, the Jerrold analysis indicates that there was a tying arrangement here. Jerrold also indicates that tying may be permissible when necessary to enable a new business to break into the market. See id., at 555-558. Assuming this defense exists, and assuming it justified the 1971 Roux contract in order to give Roux an incentive to go to work at a new hospital with an uncertain future, that justification is inapplicable to the 1976 contract, since by then Roux was willing to continue to service the hospital without a tying arrangement.

40 This is not to say that § 1 of the Sherman Act gives a purchaser the right to buy a product that the seller does not wish to offer for sale. A grocer may decide to carry four brands of cookies and no more. If the customer wants a fifth brand, he may go elsewhere but he cannot sue the grocer even if there is no other in town. However, in such a case the customer is free to purchase no cookies at all, while buying other needed food. If the grocer required the customer to buy an unwanted brand of cookies in order to buy other items which the customer needs and cannot readily obtain elsewhere, then a tying question arises. Cf. Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U. S., at 7 (grocer selling flour can require customers to also buy sugar only “if its competitors were ready and able to sell flour by itself”). Here, the question is whether patients are forced to use an unwanted anesthesiologist in order to obtain needed hospital services.

41 An examination of the reason or reasons why petitioners denied respondent staff privileges will not provide the answer to the question whether the package of services they offered to their patients is an illegal tying arrangement. As a matter of antitrust law, petitioners may give their anesthesiology business to Roux because he is the best doctor available, because he is willing to work long hours, or because he is the son-in-law of the hospital administrator without violating the per se rule against tying. Without evidence that petitioners are using market power to force Roux upon patients there is no basis to view the arrangement as unreasonably restraining competition whatever the reasons for its creation. Conversely, with such evidence, the per se rule against tying may apply. Thus, we reject the view of the District Court that the legality of an arrangement of this kind turns on whether it was adopted for the purpose of improving patient care.

42 Petitioners argue and the District Court found that the exclusive contract had what it characterized as procompetitive justifications in that an exclusive contract ensures 24-hour anesthesiology coverage, enables flexible scheduling, and facilitates work routine, professional standards, and maintenance of equipment. The Court of Appeals held these findings to be clearly erroneous since the exclusive contract was not necessary to achieve these ends. Roux was willing to provide 24-hour coverage even without an exclusive contract and the credentials committee of the hospital could impose standards for staff privileges that would ensure staff would comply with the demands of scheduling, maintenance, and professional standards. 686 F. 2d, at 292. In the past, we have refused to tolerate manifestly anticompetitive conduct simply because the health care industry is involved. See Arizona v. Maricopa Medical Society, 457 U. S., at 348-351; National Gerimedical Hospital v. Blue Cross, 452 U. S. 378 (1981); American Medical Assn. v. United States, 317 U. S. 519, 528-529 (1943). Petitioners seek no special solicitude. See n. 12, supra. We have also uniformly rejected similar “goodwill” defenses for tying arrangements, finding that the use of contractual quality specifications are generally sufficient to protect quality without the use of a tying arrangement. See Standard Oil Co. of California v. United States, 337 U. S., at 305-306; International Salt Co. v. United States, 332 U. S., at 397-398; International Business Machines Corp. v. United States, 298 U. S., at 138-140. See generally Comment, Tying Arrangements under the Antitrust Laws: The “Integrity of the Product” Defense, 62 Mich. L. Rev. 1413 (1964). Since the District Court made no finding as to why contractual quality specifications would not protect the hospital, there is no basis for departing from our prior cases here.

43 In fact its position in this market is not dissimilar from the market share at issue in Times-Picayune, which the Court found insufficient as a basis for inferring market power. See 345 U. S., at 611-613. Moreover, in other antitrust contexts this Court has found that market shares comparable to that present here do not create an unacceptable likelihood of anticompetitive conduct. See United States v. Connecticut National Bank, 418 U. S. 656 (1974); United States v. E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 351 U. S. 377 (1956).

44 The Court of Appeals acknowledged that absent these market imperfections, there was no basis for applying the per se rule against tying. “The contract at issue here involved only one hospital out of at least twenty in the area. Under the analysis applied to a truly competitive market, appellant has failed to prove an illegal tying arrangement.” 686 F. 2d, at 290.

45 Congress has found these market imperfections to exist. See National Gerimedical Hospital v. Blue Cross, 452 U. S., at 388, n. 13, 391-393, and n. 18; 42 U. S. C. §§300k, 300k-2(b); H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 96-420, pp. 57-58 (1979); S. Rep. No. 96-96, pp. 52-53 (1979).

46 As an economic matter, market power exists whenever prices can be raised above the levels that would be charged in a competitive market. See Fortner II, 429 U. S., at 620; Fortner I, 394 U. S., at 503-504.

47 Nor is there an indication in the record that petitioners’ practices have increased the social costs of their market power. Since patients’ anes-thesiological needs are fixed by medical judgment, respondent does not argue that the tying arrangement facilitates price discrimination. Where variable-quantity purchasing is unavailable as a means to enable price discrimination, commentators have seen less justification for condemning tying. See Dam, supra n. 23, at 15-17; Turner, supra n. 21, at 67-72. While tying arrangements like the one at issue here are unlikely to be used to facilitate price discrimination, they could have the similar effect of enabling hospitals “to evade price control in the tying product through clandestine transfer of the profit to the tied product. ...” Fortner I, 394 U. S., at 513 (White, J., dissenting). Insurance companies are the principal source of price restraint in the hospital industry; they place some limitations on the ability of hospitals to exploit their market power. Through this arrangement, petitioners may be able to evade that restraint by obtaining a portion of the anesthesiologists’ fees and therefore realize a greater return than they could in the absence of the arrangement. This could also have an adverse effect on the anesthesiology market since it is possible that only less able anesthesiologists would be willing to give up part of their fees in return for the security of an exclusive contract. However, there are no findings of either the District Court or the Court of Appeals which indicate that this type of exploitation of market power has occurred here. The Court of Appeals found only that Roux’s use of nurse anesthetists increased its and the hospital’s profits, but there was no finding that nurse anesthetists might not be used with equal frequency absent the exclusive contract. Indeed, the District Court found that nurse anesthetists are utilized in all hospitals in the area. 513 F. Supp., at 537, 543. Moreover, there is nothing in the record which details whether this arrangement has enhanced the value of East Jefferson’s market power or harmed quality competition in the anesthesiology market.

48 While there was some rather impressionistic testimony that the prevalence of exclusive contracts tended to discourage young doctors from entering the market, the evidence was equivocal and neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals made any findings concerning the contract’s effect on entry barriers. Respondent does not press the point before this Court. It is possible that under some circumstances an exclusive contract could raise entry barriers since anesthesiologists could not compete for the contract without raising the capital necessary to run a hospitalwide operation. However, since the hospital has provided most of the capital for the exclusive contractor in this case, that problem does not appear to be present.

49 While it is true that purchasers may not be fully sensitive to the price or quality implications of a tying arrangement, so that competition may be impeded, see n. 24, supra, this depends on an empirical demonstration concerning the effect of the arrangement on price or quality, and the record reveals little if anything about the effect of this arrangement on the market for anesthesiological services.

50 If, as is likely, it is the patient’s doctor and not the patient who selects an anesthesiologist, the doctor can simply take the patient elsewhere if he is dissatisfied with Roux. The District Court found that most doctors in the area have staff privileges at more than one hospital. 513 F. Supp., at 541.

51 The effect of the contract, of course, has been to remove the East Jefferson Hospital from the market open to Roux’s competitors. Like any exclusive-requirements contract, this contract could be unlawful if it foreclosed so much of the market from penetration by Roux’s competitors as to unreasonably restrain competition in the affected market, the market for anesthesiological services. See generally Tampa Electric Co. v. Nashville Coal Co., 365 U. S. 320 (1961); Standard Oil Co. of California v. United States, 337 U. S. 293 (1949). However, respondent has not attempted to make this showing.

52 The record simply tells us little if anything about the effect of this arrangement on price or quality of anesthesiological services. As to price, the arrangement did not lead to an increase in the price charged to the patient. 686 F. 2d, at 291. As to quality, the record indicates little more than that there have never been any complaints about the quality of Roux’s services, and no contention that his services are in any respect inferior to those of respondent. Moreover, the self-interest of the hospital, as well as the ethical and professional norms under which it operates, presumably protect the quality of anesthesiological services. See Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals, Accreditation Manual for Hospitals 3-10, 151-154 (1983).

53 See App. A to Brief for American Society of Anesthesiologists, Inc., as Amicus Curiae.

54 The claims raised by respondent but not passed upon by the Court of Appeals remain open on remand. See n. 2, supra.