Supreme Court hears cigarette labeling, union fees, arbitration cases News
Supreme Court hears cigarette labeling, union fees, arbitration cases

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] heard oral arguments Monday in three cases, including Altria Group v. Good [merit briefs], 07-562, in which the Court will consider whether the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act [text] bars state lawsuits based on allegedly deceptive cigarette advertising. A federal judge originally dismissed a suit brought by three Maine smokers who accused Philip Morris of presenting light cigarettes as less harmful than they really are, but the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reinstated the case [opinion text]. Appearing on behalf of Altria during Monday's oral arguments [transcript], former Solicitor General Theodore Olson [official profile] noted that the state law claims "track nearly verbatim the Cigarette Labeling Act's pre-emption provision." Arguing for the respondents, attorney David Frederick said that Congress had "no intention whatsoever to immunize cigarette makers for the false statements that they made in violation of anti-deception-in-the-marketplace rules." Several members of the Court seemed skeptical of the respondents' argument. Justice Samuel Alito suggested that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) [official website], which is supporting the respondents, had "passively approved" of the use of the allegedly misleading claims in advertisements. AP has more. SCOTUSblog has additional coverage.

Also argued [transcript] on Monday was another First Circuit case, Locke, et al., v. Karass [merits briefs], 07-610, raising the issue of whether a state may constitutionally require nonunion public employees to pay agency fees to a union acting as an exclusive bargaining unit when part of that money pays for litigation conducted by the union's national affiliate. Joining two other circuits, the First Circuit ruled [opinion text] such a requirement did not violate the First Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment if the expenses "were substantively related to the bargaining process."

Finally, the Court heard arguments [transcript] in Vaden v. Discover Bank [merits briefs], 07-773, presenting the question of whether federal courts have jurisdiction to hear lawsuits brought under the Federal Arbitration Act [text] to compel arbitration when the claim does not raise a federal question but the underlying dispute to be arbitrated involves federal law. Finding that a federal question existed, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held [opinion, PDF] that the district court properly compelled arbitration.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.

Former communist countries admitted for EU accession

On April 16, 2003, the 2003 Treaty of Accession was signed by 10 countries, admitting them for European Union (EU) ascension. After Malta and Cyprus, eight of the ten new EU nations (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) were former communist countries. The signing of the treaty in Athens marked the first time that former members of the Soviet Bloc joined the EU.

Learn more about EU expansion from the organization's website.

More This Day @ Law... ▸