Legal Commentary

My love of good beer (and my part-time gig as a home-brewer) means that every now and then I think about designing a course in Beer Law that would explore various beer-related cases and what they tell us about the law.  Leading my draft syllabus so far are the following:

In Craig v. Boren, the Court ruled that governmental gender-based classifications violate the equal protection clause unless the government can prove that its action is substantially related to an important interest.  Applying this rule to the facts at hand, the Court ensured equal access to bad beer regardless of sex by striking down an Oklahoma law that permitted young women between the ages of 18-21 -- but not their young male counterparts -- to buy 3.2% beer.

On the other hand, in Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, the Court rejected an equal protection challenge to a Moose Lodge's refusal to serve beer (or any other alcohol) to African-Americans.  Pennsylvania's grant of a liquor license to the lodge, the Court held, did not constitute sufficient government entanglement for the Constitution to apply to the denial of service.

Turning to free speech issues, the Court struck down state laws that banned ads featuring the price of beer and other alcoholic beverages in 44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island.  It ruled that such bans impermissibly regulated truthful, nonmisleading commercial speech in violation of the First Amendment.

There's a lot we could do with commercial speech, but for now I'll stick with just one more case in this area:  Bad Frog Brewery v. New York State Liquor Authority, in which the Second Circuit considered New York's ban on a beer label's "picture of a frog with the second of its four unwebbed 'fingers' extended in a manner evocative of a well known human gesture of insult."  This ban also fell to a First Amendment challenge, as the panel found that it did not directly or materially advance -- nor was it narrowly tailored to achieve -- the state's substantial interests in promoting temperance and protecting children from profane advertising.  

In one of the few modern-day cases interpreting the 21st Amendment, the Court in Granholm v. Heald struck down state laws that permitted in-state -- but not out-of-state -- wineries to sell wine directly to in-state consumers as state discrimination against interstate commerce in violation of the dormant commerce clause.  (I know, I know, it's about wine, not beer -- but the analysis would apply as well to state laws regulating local microbreweries).

Switching from con law to torts:  Donoghue v. Stevenson marked the introduction of modern products liability approaches to England in 1932.  There the plaintiff poured her ginger beer (I'm stretching the beer concept here) from an opaque bottle, only to watch what appeared to be a decomposed snail fall from the bottle and into her glass.  The House of Lords permitted the plaintiff to sue the beer manufacturer for negligence despite the absence of a contractual relationship between the parties.

That's as far as I've got so far.  I welcome additional suggestions.