Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman

877 F.3d 99
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedDecember 6, 2017
Docket13-4533 (L)
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 877 F.3d 99 (Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman, 877 F.3d 99 (2d Cir. 2017).

Opinion

DEBRA ANN LIVINGSTON, Circuit Judge:

On remand from the Supreme Court, we are tasked with determining “whether [New York’s General Business Law § ] 518 is a valid commercial speech regulation under Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission of New York, 447 U.S. 557, 100 S.Ct. 2343, 65 L.Ed.2d 341 (1980), and whether the law can be upheld as a valid disclosure requirement under Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel of Supreme Court of Ohio, 471 U.S. 626, 105 S.Ct. 2265, 85 L.Ed.2d 652 (1985).” Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman (Expressions II), — U.S. -, 137 S.Ct. 1144, 1151, 197 L.Ed.2d 442 (2017). Finding aspects of the New York statute at issue in this case unclear, and, further, that the resolution of these ambiguities will determine the course of our constitutional analysis, we defer decision and certify the following question to the New York Court of Appeals: “Does a merchant comply with New York’s General Business Law § 518 so long as the merchant posts the total-dollars-and-cents price charged to credit card users?” The New York Court of Appeals may reformulate or expand this certified question as it deems appropriate.

BACKGROUND

We largely assume familiarity with the factual and procedural history discussed extensively in our prior opinion in this case. See Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman (Expressions I), 808 F.3d 118 (2d Cir. 2015). We recount this history, and the case’s subsequent procedural history, only as necessary to explain our decision to certify.

In Expressions I, we considered the plaintiffs’ First Amendment challenge to New York’s General Business Law § 518 (“Section 518”). That provision, the scope and application of which, as we explain below, is directly at issue in this iteration of the case, reads, in its entirety, as follows:

No seller in any sales transaction may impose a surcharge on a holder who elects to use a credit card in lieu of payment by cash, check, or similar means.
Any seller who violates the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed five hundred dollars or a term of imprisonment up to one year, or both.

We observed then that the plaintiffs’ papers appeared to raise two facially distinct challenges to Section 518. “First, [certain of the plaintiffs] aver[red] that they would like to post only a single price for their goods and services and charge more than that price to credit-card customers, but are prohibited from doing so by Section 518.” Expressions I, 808 F.3d at 128. In other words, these plaintiffs claimed, they would like to advertise or mark their products at one price, displaying the credit card surcharge to be imposed—either as a percentage of the base price or as a dollar amount—alongside that single price. For instance, a merchant might post a price of $10 for an item, but note “with roughly equal prominence” either that a surcharge of thirty cents, or, alternatively, that a three-percent surcharge would be imposed on credit card users. See Joint App’x 140. We termed this proposed pricing approach a “single-sticker-price scheme,” and explained that a pricing scheme of this sort was “clearly prohibit[ed]” by Section 518. Expressions 1,808 F.3d at 129. 1

Second, one of the plaintiffs sought First Amendment protection for a “dual-price scheme;” under which a seller posts “two different prices for its servicest,] one for credit-card customers and one for cash customers.” Id. Though we thought it far from clear that Section 518 would bar a seller’s use of such a scheme, see id. at 139, the plaintiff suggested that it “fear[ed] .,. prosecution] for characterizing this [posted] price differential as a ‘surcharge’ or for telling its customers that credit costs ‘more,’ ” id. at 129.

Following our decision in Expressions I, in which we (1) rejected the plaintiffs’ as-applied First Amendment challenge to the single-sticker pricing scheme on the grounds that Section 518, applied in that context, regulated conduct and not speech, id. at 130-35, and (2) declined, on Pullman abstention grounds, to reach the question whether Section 518, if ever applied to the proposed dual-pricing scheme, would withstand a challenge under the First Amendment, id. at 137-41, the plaintiffs petitioned for certiorari. The Supreme Court granted that petition, and, after argument, vacated and remanded.

Narrowing the scope of their challenge on' certiorari,1 the plaintiffs specifically focused on the proposed single-sticker pricing scheme. See Expressions II, 137 S.Ct. at 1149 & n.l; see also id, at n.4, Analyzing that scheme, the Supreme Court agreed with our assessment “that [Section] 518 regulates a relationship between a sticker price and the price charged to credit card users.” Id. at 1151. However, the Supreme Court explained, because the statute, as we understood it, primarily operates by regulating the way sellers communicate their prices, rather ..than by regulating merchants’ prices themselves, Section 518 must still be analyzed as a speech regulation under the First Amendment. Id.

Having determined that Section 518' should be analyzed under the First Amendment doctrines governing state regulation of commercial speech, the Supreme Court then remanded this case for us to determine “whether [Section] 518 is a valid commercial speech regulation under Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission of New York, 447 U.S. 557, 100 S.Ct. 2343, 65 L.Ed.2d 341 (1980), and whether the law can b.e upheld as a valid disclosure requirement under Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel of Supreme Court of Ohio, 471 U.S. 626, 105 S.Ct. 2265, 85 L.Ed.2d 652 (1985).” Id.

DISCUSSION

I

Taking up the task before us on remand, we find it necessary to first certify to the New York Court of .Appeals a question of state law, the answer to which will directly shape our First Amendment analysis. Not only do the. First Amendment issues in this case not, to our mind, admit of easy answers, but, more importantly, these issues cannot be addressed without initially considering how Section 518’s restrictions operate in practice.

We have, previously noted our uncertainty about how widely Section -518’s restrictions sweep. See Expressions I, 808.F;3d at 137 (noting that the “primary problem” with the plaintiffs’ First Amendment challenges is that “it is far from clear that Section 518 prohibits the relevant conduct in the first place”). As we explain below, resolution of at least some of this uncertainty will clear the path for our First Amendment analysis. Thus, before definitively addressing the questions the.

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Bluebook (online)
877 F.3d 99, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/expressions-hair-design-v-schneiderman-ca2-2017.