Court Opinion

ID: 9483782
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:31:25.205571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:50.064896
License: Public Domain

BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result.
I agree with the majority that the doctrine of res judicata does not bar the present action. I also agree that because the underlying activity at issue, making rebates of insurance premiums in Florida, is lawful activity, and because the Michigan offer to make such rebates in Florida is speech and not “activity,” the first prong of the Central Hudson test is met. If the majority opinion had been thus limited, I would have concurred in the entire opinion. I write separately, however, because I believe the majority opinion goes beyond what is necessary for us to decide the case before us and because I do not agree with the analysis of the Michigan statute in terms of Bigelow and Record Revolution.
Central Hudson sets forth a four-pronged test for determining whether particular commercial speech is entitled to First Amendment protection. The majority concludes, and I agree, that as a matter of law, because the Michigan statute concerns lawful activity — namely, insurance rebates that take place in Florida — the first prong of Central Hudson is passed. Therefore, this case must be remanded to enable the district court to determine, under Central Hudson, whether the asserted government interest is substantial, whether the challenged statute directly advances this interest, and whether the statute is no more extensive than necessary to advance that interest. See id., 447 U.S. at 564, 100 S.Ct. at 2350.
My difficulty with the majority opinion lies in its use of the substantial interest analysis set forth in the Supreme Court’s 1975 Bigelow case and this court’s 1980 decision in Record Revolution to make the unlawful activity analysis necessary to determine whether the Michigan statute passes the first prong of the Central Hudson test. Bigelow predates Central Hudson. However, as the excerpt from Bige-low quoted in the majority opinion makes clear, the Court’s decision in Bigelow turned on the fact that Virginia did not have a substantial interest in shielding its citizens from information concerning activi*698ties in other states that were lawful in those states. Bigelow, 421 U.S. at 827-29, 95 S.Ct. at 2235-36. Similarly, in Record Revolution, which was decided after Central Hudson, we struck down the challenged ordinances only after concluding that the cities’ legitimate interest did not extend to regulating the availability of information to their citizens concerning activity that lawfully occurred in other cities. Record Revolution, 638 F.2d at 937.
The lawful activity and substantial interest prongs of Central Hudson are analytically distinct. By applying the substantial interest analysis from Bigelow and Record Revolution to the present case as part of the lawful activity analysis, particularly in light of the majority opinion’s express holding that it is limited to the threshold question of whether the regulated speech concerns lawful activity, the majority seriously blurs the distinction between the two analy-ses and risks obfuscating First Amendment, commercial speech jurisprudence. I would simply remand this case to the district court with instructions to determine ' whether Michigan may regulate Michigan offers concerning lawful Florida insurance rebates in light of the remaining three prongs of Central Hudson.