44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island
"44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island" is a significant U.S. Supreme Court case from 1996 that addressed the intersection of commercial speech and the First Amendment. The case arose from Rhode Island's 1956 legislation, which prohibited liquor stores from advertising the prices of alcoholic beverages. This law extended to media outlets, which were also banned from publishing such advertisements. The Supreme Court's ruling unanimously struck down these restrictions, establishing that they violated the First Amendment's protections on free speech.
The Court's decision emphasized that states must provide substantial justification for laws that suppress truthful commercial speech, particularly when such speech is not misleading. In this case, the justices found that Rhode Island’s ban on price advertising did not effectively advance its stated goal of promoting temperance and was overly broad. The ruling underscored the principle that commercial speech—when truthful and non-deceptive—deserves robust protection under the Constitution, setting a precedent for future cases involving advertising and free speech rights. This landmark decision has implications for how states regulate commercial speech, particularly in relation to alcohol and other sensitive products.
44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island
Court: U.S. Supreme Court
Decided: May 13, 1996
Significance: Rhode Island’s efforts to ban all liquor-price advertising was held to be an unconstitutional abridgment of commercial speech
In 1956 the state of Rhode Island enacted legislation that generally prohibited liquor stores licensed in the state and out-of-state manufacturers from advertising the prices of any alcoholic products that they sold within Rhode Island. The legislation also prohibited Rhode Island media from publishing or broadcasting any advertisements mentioning prices of any alcoholic beverages. In addition, a regulation of the Rhode Island liquor control administrator provided that no placard or sign visible from the exterior of a package store could make any reference to the price of any alcoholic beverage.
On May 13, 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a seminal decision broadening constitutional protections of commercial speech, struck down the statutes and regulations. Although unable to agree on an opinion as to the proper standard for determining the validity of the liquor-price advertising ban, the members of the Court unanimously agreed that the statutes and the implementing regulations abridged speech in ways that violated the First Amendment.
Six justices held that the Twenty-first Amendment did not qualify the First Amendment’s prohibition against laws abridging freedom of speech. Five justices held that Rhode Island had failed to carry the heavy burden of justifying, for First Amendment purposes, the complete ban on liquor-price advertising. Four justices expressed the view that regulations that entirely suppress commercial speech in order to pursue a policy not related to consumer protection must be reviewed with “special care,” and that such blanket bans should not be approved unless the speech itself is deceptive or related to unlawful activity.
The justices also said that where a state entirely prohibits the dissemination of truthful, nonmisleading commercial messages for reasons related to the preservation of fair bargaining process, there is little reason to depart from the rigorous review that the First Amendment generally demands. Moreover, Rhode Island’s advertising ban could not survive the applicable “special care” review standard, as it did not directly advance the state’s substantial interest in promoting temperance, and it was more extensive than necessary to serve that interest. Finally, the Court ruled that various arguments in support of Rhode Island’s claim that it had merely exercised appropriate “legislative judgment” in determining that a price advertising ban would best promote temperance would have to be rejected.