Opinion ID: 1436778
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Misleading Nature of the Speech

Text: As explained by the majority, the threshold inquiry under the Central Hudson analysis seeks simply to ensure that the communication is neither misleading nor related to unlawful activity. Cent. Hudson, 447 U.S. at 564, 100 S.Ct. 2343. Indeed, there can be no constitutional objection to the suppression of commercial messages that do not accurately inform the public about lawful activity. Id. at 563, 100 S.Ct. 2343. Consequently, [t]he government may ban forms of communication more likely to deceive the public than to inform it. Id. (citing Friedman v. Rogers, 440 U.S. 1, 13, 15-16, 99 S.Ct. 887, 59 L.Ed.2d 100 (1979), and Ohralik, 436 U.S. at 464-65, 98 S.Ct. 1912). By including a line-item tax on a consumer's invoice, BellSouth clearly gives the impression that the consumer is responsible for the additional tax imposed by the government through legislation. In fact, however, K.R.S. § 136.616(3) explicitly provides that the gross revenue tax imposed by the legislation is not the responsibility of the consumer but, rather, must be handled by the telecommunications company as an additional cost of doing business within the Commonwealth. I find it difficult to imagine more misleading speech than a list of charges referencing a monthly fee and various taxes, when one of the listed taxes is not to be assessed against the customer at all but is more akin to the fixed costs of a corporate entity, like building rental charges, satellite purchases, or other business overhead costs. Clearly, line-item charges on a customers bill are not inherently misleading; to the contrary, such itemizations most often serve to explain the various components of a consumer's cost or, traditionally, are assessed on the transaction between the operator and the subscriber. See, e.g., 47 U.S.C. § 542(c)(3). Nevertheless, to insinuate that a certain charge is somehow dependent upon the consumer's usage of a particular telecommunication service when it is, in fact, an assessment only upon the gross revenues of the company providing the service is nothing if not misleading. Were BellSouth willing to place line items on customers' invoices listing the consumers' shares of payments for executive salaries, golden parachutes, lobbying expenses, business travel, corporate parties, advertising, and every other component of the corporation's costs of doing business, the line item defining the portion of the bill necessary to recoup payment of a gross receipts tax would not appear as deceptive. Its failure to do so, however, merely highlights the misleading nature of emphasizing that single fixed business-operations expense. By banning the inclusion of a line item on consumers' invoices listing that portion of each individual bill that represents a portion of a gross-receipts tax imposed upon BellSouth, the Kentucky legislature has acted to protect Commonwealth citizens from misleading, deceptive information. Because cherished First Amendment principles do not protect false or misleading commercial speech, I dissent from the majority's analysis of this issue and would reverse the district court's invalidation of the challenged ban that seeks to prevent just such deception.