On January 13, 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed an appeals court’s unwarranted expansion of antitrust law to cover claims by a telephone customer that the owner of all telephone lines in New York City (Verizon) was failing to maintain its lines properly. The decision was a victory for WLF, which filed a brief urging reversal. The customer (a plaintiffs’ lawyer) claimed that Verizon was purposely providing poor lines in order to prevent other companies from competing with Verizon in local telephone service. The Court agreed with WLF that antitrust law should not be expanded to cover such claims. WLF had argued that use of the antitrust laws to compel the sharing of facilities would deter competition rather than encourage it, by effectively ordering a taking of a company’s property — and thereby would deter that company and its competitors from investing in facilities that might be subject to forced sharing.