Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-468_5if6.pdf
Page Number: 3.0

Cite as:  598 U. S. ____ (2023) 

3 

Syllabus 

Petitioners further insist that Proposition 12 offends this “almost per 
se” rule because the law will impose substantial new costs on out-of-
state pork producers who wish to sell their products in California.  Pe-
titioners contend the rule they propose follows ineluctably from three 
cases: Healy v. Beer Institute, 491 U. S. 324; Brown-Forman Distillers 
Corp. v. New York State Liquor Authority, 476 U. S. 573; and Baldwin 
v. G. A. F. Seelig, Inc., 294 U. S. 511.  But a close look at those cases 
reveals  that  each  typifies  the  familiar  concern  with  preventing  pur-
poseful  discrimination  against  out-of-state  economic  interests.    In 
Baldwin, a New York law that barred out-of-state dairy farmers from 
selling their milk in the State for less than the minimum price New 
York  law  guaranteed  in-state  producers  “plainly  discriminate[d]” 
against  out-of-staters by “erecting  an economic barrier protecting a 
major  local  industry  against  competition  from  without  the  State.” 
Dean Milk Co. v. Madison, 340 U. S. 349, 354 (discussing Baldwin).  In 
Brown-Forman, a New York law that required liquor distillers to af-
firm that their in-state prices were no higher than their out-of-state 
prices impermissibly sought to force out-of-state distillers to “surren-
der” whatever cost advantages they enjoyed against their in-state ri-
vals,  which  amounted  to  economic  protectionism.    476  U. S.,  at  580. 
The Court reached a similar conclusion in Healy, which involved a 
Connecticut  law  that  required  out-of-state  beer  merchants  to  affirm 
that  their  in-state  prices  were  no higher  than  those  they charged  in 
neighboring  States.    491  U. S.,  at  328–330.    As  the  Court  later  ex-
plained,  “[t]he  essential  vice  in  laws”  like  Connecticut’s  is  that  they
“hoard” commerce “for the benefit of ” in-state merchants and discour-
age consumers from crossing state lines to make their purchases from
nearby out-of-state vendors.  C & A Carbone, Inc. v. Clarkstown, 511 
U. S. 383, 391–392.   

Petitioners  insist  that  Baldwin,  Brown-Forman,  and  Healy  taken 
together suggest an “almost per se” rule against state laws with “ex-
traterritorial  effects.”  While  petitioners  point  to  language  in  these
cases pertaining to the “practical effect” of the challenged laws on out-
of-state commerce and prices, “the language of an opinion is not always 
to be parsed as though we were dealing with language of a statute.” 
Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 341.  The language highlighted 
by  petitioners  in  Baldwin, Brown-Forman,  and Healy appeared  in  a
particular context and did particular work.  A close look at those cases 
reveals nothing like the “almost per se” rule against laws that have the 
“practical  effect”  of  “controlling”  extraterritorial  commerce  that  peti-
tioners posit, and indeed petitioners’ reading would cast a shadow over 
laws long understood to represent valid exercises of the States’ consti-
tutionally reserved powers.  Baldwin, Brown-Forman, and Healy did 
not mean to do so much.  In rejecting petitioners’ “almost per se” theory