Retail Digital Network LLC v. Appelsmith
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Eighth Circuit Hints at Unconstitutionality of Missouri Restrictions on Alcohol Advertising

Last week, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit weighed in on the legality of restrictions on alcohol advertising under the First Amendment, issuing an opinion in Missouri Broadcasters Association v. Lacy that could eventually broaden free speech protections for alcohol beverage advertisements. After the lower court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss and plaintiffs appealed, the Eighth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal, finding that plaintiffs’ claim alleging the unconstitutionality of a Missouri statute and two regulations should be heard.

The case concerned three Missouri provisions – two regulations and a statute – that restrict the advertising of alcohol beverages:

  1. a regulation prohibiting retailers from advertising price discounts outside of the licensed premises (but allowing the advertising of discounts by using generic descriptions (e.g., “Happy Hour”), as well as the advertising of specific discounts within the licensed premises);
  2. a regulation prohibiting retailers from advertising prices below cost; and
  3. a statute requiring manufacturers and wholesalers choosing to a list a retailer in an advertisement to exclude the retail price of the product from the advertisement, list multiple unaffiliated retailers and make the listing relatively inconspicuous.

Plaintiffs – a broadcasting industry group, radio station operator, winery and retailer – sued Missouri’s supervisor of liquor control and attorney general, alleging that the three provisions are facially invalid under the First Amendment in that they prohibit truthful, non-misleading commercial speech, are inconsistently enforced by the state and the challenged statute unconstitutionally compels speech.

To state a claim that a statute is facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment, Supreme Court precedent instructs that plaintiffs must show that there are no set of circumstances under which the challenged provision would be valid, or that a substantial number of the provision’s applications are unconstitutional. Alcohol beverage advertisements involve commercial speech, which receives less protection under the First Amendment than other constitutionally protected forms of expression. In Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Comm’n of New York (1980), the Supreme Court articulated a four-part test for determining the constitutionality of laws restricting commercial speech:  whether (1) the speech concerns lawful activity and is not misleading; (2) the governmental interest justifying the regulation is substantial; (3) the regulation directly advances the governmental interest; and (4) the regulation is no broader than necessary to further the governmental interest.

Applying the third and fourth factors of the Central Hudson test (plaintiffs and defendants agreed on the first two factors of the test), the court found that the facts plaintiffs alleged were “more than sufficient” to state a plausible claim. First, the court opined, plaintiffs made sufficient allegations that the challenged provisions do not directly advance Missouri’s substantial interest in promoting responsible drinking. Although defendants argued that a link exists between advertising promotions and increased demand for alcohol beverages, the court noted that “multiple” inconsistencies in the regulations demonstrate that the regulations do not advance Missouri’s interest in promoting responsible drinking. Likewise, the court determined, plaintiffs pled sufficient facts to support [...]

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Ninth Circuit Opinion Calls into Question Constitutionality of California Tied-House Laws

On January 7, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion in Retail Digital Network, LLC v. Appelsmith, overruling longstanding Ninth Circuit precedent concerning the legality of certain restrictions on alcohol beverage advertising under the First Amendment and opening the door to part of California’s tied-house scheme potentially being declared unconstitutional.  The case concerns the legality of sections of California’s tied-house laws, California Business and Professions Code Section 25503(f)-(h), which prohibit manufacturers and wholesalers (and their agents) from giving anything of value to retailers in exchange for advertising their products.  Retail Digital Network, LLC (RDN), which installs advertising displays in retail stores and contracts with parties to advertise their products on the displays, sought a declaratory judgment that Section 25503(f)-(h) violated the First Amendment after RDN’s attempts to contract with alcohol manufacturers failed due to the manufacturers’ concerns that such advertising would violate these tied-house provisions.

The district court found Section 25503(f)-(h) constitutional under a Ninth Circuit case from 1986, Actmedia, Inc. v. Stroh, in which the court upheld Section 25503(h).  The Actmedia court applied the intermediate scrutiny test on commercial speech regulation articulated by the Supreme Court in Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Comm’n of New York (1980).  The Central Hudson test looks at whether:  (1) the speech is not misleading and concerns lawful activity; (2) the governmental interest justifying the regulation is substantial; (3) the regulation directly advances the governmental interest; and (4) the regulation is not broader than necessary to serve the governmental interest.  RDN argued that subsequent Supreme Court decisions – Rubin v. Coors Brewing Co. (1995), 44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island (1996), and Sorrell v. IMS Health, Inc. (2011) – overrule Actmedia.

The Ninth Circuit determined that Actmedia is “clearly irreconcilable” with Sorrell – a difficult standard to meet.  (The court did not find Coors or 44 Liquormart to have undermined the reasoning of Actmedia as these cases involved complete bans on certain commercial speech, which Section 25503 is not.)  Sorrell required “heightened judicial scrutiny” (rather than the intermediate scrutiny applied by the Actmedia court) of restrictions on non-misleading, content- or speaker-based commercial speech about lawful products.

Such heightened scrutiny may be applied using the Central Hudson test, the Ninth Circuit found, but the court must further focus on the consistency between the government’s asserted interest under the second Central Hudson prong and the legislative purposes that “actually animated” the challenged law.  In articulating its decision, the court noted that other federal circuit courts of appeal have agreed that Sorrell requires heightened judicial scrutiny of content-based restrictions on non-misleading commercial speech.

The court reversed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment to the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) and remanded the case to the district court to apply heightened judicial scrutiny to the statute.  Specifically, the court advised the lower court to consider whether the ABC has shown a real danger of paid advertising of alcohol beverages leading to [...]

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