On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled in Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman that imposing restrictions on how merchants inform buyers about the prices they charge triggers First Amendment scrutiny. This would seem to be an obvious conclusion, but the decision is an important, although limited, victory for those who want to convey honest information to their customers, and for those who have a right to receive that information.
The case dealt with New York Business Law § 518, which prohibits merchants from imposing a “surcharge” on customers who use credit cards, but allows for a “cash discount.” To put it simply: the law allows stores to advertise “discounts” for paying cash, but makes it a crime to advertise an economically equivalent “surcharge” for paying with plastic.
Expressions Hair Design, along with several other merchants, sued the state, arguing that the law was vague and a violation of their First Amendment right to convey information to their customers. The federal district court agreed, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed that decision. The circuit court’s ruling held that the First Amendment wasn’t implicated because the law didn’t regulate speech but merely regulated prices. The Supreme Court granted review to determine two issues: The threshold question of whether the law regulated speech rather than conduct and, if so, whether the law violated the First Amendment.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/important-limited-victory-free-speech
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