Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States

U.S. Case Law

Legal Definition of Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States

221 U.S. 1 (1911), dissolved 34 companies controlled by John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust as constituting a monopoly in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. While in one sense the case was the high point of the “trust-busting” efforts of two presidents (see also Northern Securities Co. v. United States), in another sense it marked a turn toward a more conservative interpretation of the Sherman Act. Chief Justice Edward Douglass White promulgated the idea that a restraint of trade by a monopolistic business must be “unreasonable” to be illegal under the Sherman Act. White's failure, however, to define a “reasonable” restraint, coupled with the imprecise brevity of the Sherman Act, made subsequent antitrust decisions exceedingly difficult to predict.

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Cite this Entry

“Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States.” The Merriam-Webster.com Legal Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Inc., https://www.merriam-webster.com/legal/Standard%20Oil%20Co.%20of%20New%20Jersey%20v.%20United%20States. Accessed 23 January 2020.