Opinion ID: 8407619
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Deliveries by the United States Postal Service

Text: The district court also found that because the State is without authority to dictate what the United States Postal Service may or may not ship, this fact likewise “make[s] the law ineffective in stopping minors from accessing cigarettes,” id. at , and “prevent[ing] smokers from obtaining lower-priced cigarettes,” id. at . This conclusion is based on a misinterpretation of the Statute. Subdivision one prohibits “any person” from “ship[ping] or causing] to be shipped” cigarettes to New York consumers directly. N.Y. Pub. Health Law § 1399-ll (1). This means that direct shippers are subject to the Statute’s civil and criminal penalties regardless of what means of transport they use to deliver the cigarettes. Subdivision two imposes the same penalties on those entities that transport cigarettes directly to New York consumers. To the extent that the State cannot enforce the Statute against the United States Postal Service, it is only without authority to penalize it for violations of subdivision two. In other words, while the State cannot prosecute the Postal Service itself for transporting cigarettes directly to New York consumers under subdivision two, it can prosecute direct shippers for shipping cigarettes to New York consumers through the Postal Service under subdivision one. Thus, under a proper reading of the Statute, this alleged loophole is not “fatal to its effectiveness,” id. at , because it is, in practice, nonexistent. For these reasons, we conclude that the Statute’s de minimis burden on interstate commerce is not “clearly excessive in relation to the local putative benefits,” Pike, 397 U.S. at 142, 90 S.Ct. 844, and that the Statute therefore survives Pike scrutiny.