Opinion ID: 2625
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Commerce Clause Regulatory Power

Text: The United States Constitution vests Congress with the power [t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution its authority to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States. U.S. Const. Art. I, § 8. Cases decided by the Supreme Court pertaining to Congress's authority to regulate interstate commerce have identified three general categories of regulation in which Congress is authorized to engage pursuant to the Commerce Clause. See Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 16, 125 S.Ct. 2195, 162 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005). First, Congress may regulate the channels of interstate commerce. Id. (citing Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 150, 91 S.Ct. 1357, 28 L.Ed.2d 686 (1971)). Second, Congress has authority to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce and persons or things in interstate commerce. Id. Finally, Congress'[s] commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 558-59, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995) (internal citations omitted); see also NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 37, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893 (1937) (Although activities may be intrastate in character when separately considered, if they have such a close and substantial relation to interstate commerce that their control is essential or appropriate to protect that commerce from burdens and obstructions, Congress cannot be denied the power to exercise that control.). It is the third category with which we are here concerned. The City claims that the activity that the PLCAA concerns itself with  civil litigation against members of the gun industry for unlawful acts committed by third parties  is not commercial in nature and therefore is outside of Congress's regulatory power. In support of its argument that Congress has exceeded its power by regulating litigation, the City relies on Lopez and United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 120 S.Ct. 1740, 146 L.Ed.2d 658 (2000), both of which involved statutes found to bear only a tenuous relationship with interstate commerce. See Morrison, 529 U.S. at 612, 120 S.Ct. 1740 (following Lopez and explaining that the decision in Lopez rested in part on the fact that the link between gun possession [in a school zone] and a substantial effect on interstate commerce was attenuated). Lopez involved the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, 18 U.S.C. § 922(q)(1)(A) (1988 & Supp. V), which the Court described as a criminal statute that by its terms has nothing to do with `commerce' or any sort of economic enterprise, however broadly one might define those terms. 514 U.S. at 561, 115 S.Ct. 1624. In Lopez, the government argued that the possession of guns in school zones would affect interstate commerce because: (i) the costs of violent crime that might be caused by guns in school zones will be spread throughout the population through increased insurance costs; (ii) increases in violent crime caused by guns in school zones would deter interstate travel to areas that are perceived to be unsafe; and (iii) the presence of guns in schools poses a substantial threat to the educational process by threatening the learning environment. A handicapped educational process, in turn, will result in a less productive citizenry. That, in turn, would have an adverse effect on the Nation's economic well-being. Id. at 563-64, 115 S.Ct. 1624. The Lopez Court rejected these arguments, reasoning that if Congress could permissibly regulate activities with such ethereal ties to interstate commerce, no logical limit could be imposed upon federal power. The Court further held: The possession of a gun in a local school zone is in no sense an economic activity that might, through repetition elsewhere, substantially affect any sort of interstate commerce. Respondent was a local student at a local school; there is no indication that he had recently moved in interstate commerce, and there is no requirement that his possession of the firearm have any concrete tie to interstate commerce. Id. at 567, 115 S.Ct. 1624. Morrison involved the civil remedy provision of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), 42 U.S.C. § 13981. In enacting VAWA, Congress found that gender-motivated violence affects interstate commerce by deterring potential victims from traveling interstate, from engaging in employment in interstate business, and from transacting with business, and in places involved in interstate commerce; . . . by diminishing national productivity, increasing medical and other costs, and decreasing the supply of and the demand for interstate products. Morrison, 529 U.S. at 615, 120 S.Ct. 1740 (quoting H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 103-711, at 385 (1994), as reprinted in 1994 U.S.C.C.A.N. 1801, 1853). The government argued, consistent with the Congressional findings, that gender-motivated violence substantially effects interstate commerce, but the Supreme Court rejected this argument, explaining that the government's reasoning seeks to follow the but-for causal chain from the initial occurrence of violent crime . . . to every attenuated effect upon interstate commerce. Morrison, 529 U.S. at 615, 120 S.Ct. 1740. In the case at bar, we agree with the District Court that the connection between the regulated activity and interstate commerce under the Act is far more direct than that in Morrison [and Lopez ]. Beretta, 401 F.Supp.2d at 287. When enacting the PLCAA, Congress explicitly found that the third-party suits that the Act bars are a direct threat to the firearms industry, whose interstate character is not questioned. Furthermore, the PLCAA only reaches suits that have an explicit connection with or effect on interstate commerce. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 562, 115 S.Ct. 1624. The claim-preclusion provisions of § 7902 apply to actions brought . . . against a manufacturer or seller of a qualified product for relief from injuries resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse of a qualified product, 15 U.S.C. § 7903(5)(A); where qualified product means a firearm . . . or a component part of a firearm or ammunition, that has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce,  Id. at § 7903(4) (emphasis added). Accordingly, unlike the Gun-Free School Zones Act and Violence Against Women Act, the PLCAA raises no concerns about Congressional intrusion into truly local matters. See Morrison, 529 U.S. at 618, 120 S.Ct. 1740; Lopez, 514 U.S. at 567, 115 S.Ct. 1624. The City itself, in the Amended Complaint, stressed the interstate character of the firearms industry. A foundation of the City's claim is that New York City's strict limitations on gun possession are undermined by the uncontrolled seepage into New York of guns sold in other states. We agree that the firearms industry is interstate  indeed, international  in nature. Of course, we acknowledge that simply because Congress may conclude that a particular activity substantially affects interstate commerce does not necessarily make it so. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 557 n. 2, 115 S.Ct. 1624 (internal quotation marks omitted). We also should not and do not express any opinion as to the accuracy of the Congressional findings with respect to the Act. Nevertheless, [d]ue respect for the decisions of a coordinate branch of Government demands that we invalidate a congressional enactment only upon a plain showing that Congress has exceeded its constitutional bounds. Morrison, 529 U.S. at 607, 120 S.Ct. 1740 (citing Lopez, 514 U.S. at 568, 115 S.Ct. 1624). There has been no such showing here. We find that Congress has not exceeded its authority in this case, where there can be no question of the interstate character of the industry in question and where Congress rationally perceived a substantial effect on the industry of the litigation that the Act seeks to curtail.