Today, the Supreme Court struck down on a Tennessee regulation that requires residency of two years for applicants applying for an in-state retail alcohol license. In a 7-2 decision, the Court reasoned that, while the 21st Amendment extends states the right to regulate sales of alcohol within state border, there…
Tag: Supreme Court
Supreme Court Grants Cert to A Granholm-Like Case for Retailers
On Thursday, September 27, 2018, the Supreme Court granted cert to a new case involving Granholm-like issues for the alcohol beverage wholesale and retail tiers. See Certiorari Granted. The case, Tennessee Wine and Spirits vs. Byrd Clayton, stems from a Tennessee law which requires in-state retail license applicants to satisfy residency requirements. The law…
Post-Pom Wonderful and the Not So Wonderful Impact on Alcohol Beverages
In June of last year, the Supreme Court decided a rather revolutionary case for the food industry: Pom Wonderful LLC v. The Coca-Cola Company. The case, which was commenced by Pom Wonderful, questioned the label of a competitor’s product, Coca-Cola’s Minute Maid Blueberry Pomegranate juice. The Minute Maid label contained the words…
Eighth Circuit Affirms Decision Against Southern Wine & Spirits Allowing Discrimination Against Out-of-State Wholesalers
In September, the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit decided a case with respect to wholesale licensing in the state of Missouri. Southern Wine and Spirits of America, Inc. (“SWSA”), the plaintiff-appellant, appealed from a lower court decision. The plaintiff-appellant, a foreign alcohol wholesaler, applied for a license to…
Revisited: Granholm v. Heald and the Wine Industry
This blog entry was originally posted on August 7, 2010, five years after the Supreme Court decided a major case impacting the wine industry. The decision Granholm v. Heald remains important to the wine industry and provides great context for the types of legal issues the American wine industry faces on a…
Defining the Limits of Intoxicating Beverages for Non-Beverage Purposes: Prohibition’s Dumbra v. United States
As lovers of wine and the law, we all know about the renowned 2005 Supreme Court case Granholm v. Heald, as well as several recent wine lawsuits from the early and mid-2000s involving our precious beverage. In the upcoming weeks, On Reserve seeks to focus on additional cases that shaped…
Breaking News: SCOTUS Decides Not to Hear Wine Retailers Case
BREAKING NEWS! Today, the Supreme Court decided not to examine the case brought by a group of wine retailers asking to review the case of Wine Country Gift Baskets v. Steen decided by the Fifth Circuit. The justices announced today that they will not give further consideration to whether the Texas…
Wine Retailers Appeal to SCOTUS for Review of Constitutional Issues
Happy Holidays from On Reserve! This is quite a belated post, but a legal one nonetheless, that we felt to be incredibly exciting and interesting for both the wine and legal industries. About a month ago, a group of wine retailers petitioned to the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari…
The Alcohol Beverage Legal Environment Post-Granholm
This article gives rise by suggestion of Tom Wark of Fermentation. It explores the legal environment, post-Granholm, relative to the constitutionality of the several state liquor regulatory laws and the underlying effect of the Supreme Court’s holding in Granholm. These three cases include Siesta Village Market LLC v. Steen, 595…
Interested in Reading More on Wine Law?
Wine, despite its many centuries of history, is still expanding with respect to publications defining its legal context. A general Westlaw or LexisNexis search yields [American] case law dating back one hundred years ago or longer, in addition to journal and law review articles. A generic Google or search engine…