The Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman urging the Court to hear a First Amendment challenge to the constitutionality of New York’s no-surcharge statute.

That statute prohibits merchants from imposing surcharges for credit card payments but allows them to offer discounts for customers who pay with cash.

“The law negatively affects what merchants can say to customers and, in turn, the speech that consumers can receive to make better informed choices affecting how they spend their money,” said First Amendment Project Director Clay Calvert.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the statute in 2015 and ruled that it did not affect freedom of speech. A nearly identical Florida statute was enjoined by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2015 for violating the First Amendment speech rights of Florida merchants. The brief is urging the Supreme Court to look at New York’s law as well similar laws in other states, including California and Texas.

The Amicus brief “asserts that New York’s no-surcharge law inhibits the free flow of accurate pricing information to consumers and, in doing so, keeps them ignorant about the reality of swipe fees and surcharges and, ultimately, the actual cost of credit.”

The Supreme Court is expected to decide in the fall whether or not to hear the case.

The Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization located in the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. Directed by Journalism Professor and attorney Clay Calvert, the Project is dedicated to contemporary issues of free expression, including current cases and controversies affecting freedom of information and access to information, freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of petition, and freedom of thought.

Posted: June 10, 2016
Category: College News, Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project News
Tagged as: Clay Calvert, Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project