United States Ninth Circuit

Plaintiff's suit, claiming that a California surtax on cigarettes which paid for advertisements criticizing the tobacco industry violated the First Amendment, is dismissed where it is unsupported by the Constitution and so unlimited in principle as to threaten a wide range of legitimate government activity.

Appellate Information

• Argued 05/10/2004
• Decided 09/28/2004
• Published 09/28/2004

Judges

• Before B. FLETCHER, TROTT and FISHER, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• H. Joseph Escher III, Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin, San Francisco, CA, for plaintiffs-appellants., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and R.J. Reynolds Smoke Shop, Inc., and Shannon L. Spangler and M. Kevin Underhill, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, San Francisco, CA, for plaintiff-appellant Lorillard Tobacco Company., Robert M. O'Neil and J. Joshua Wheeler, Charlottesville, VA, for amici curiae Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression and the Media Institute, in support of the plaintiffs-appellants., Daniel J. Popeo and Richard A. Samp, Washington, D.C., for amici curiae Washington Legal Foundation, in support of the plaintiffs-appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Karen Leaf, Deputy Attorney General, Sacramento, CA, for the defendants-appellees., Deborah B. Caplan and Robert S. McWhorter, Olson, Hagel & Fishburn, LLP, Sacramento, CA, for amici curiae American Cancer Society, California Division, Inc., American Heart Association, Western States Affiliates, and American Lung Association of California, in support of the defendants-appellees.