From the U.S. Supreme Court: Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman

We briefly walked through this case in the first class at GDHS this morning. It involves the free speech clause of the First Amendment and pricing.

- Here's the transcript.
- Here's the audio.
- Here's detail from ScotusBlog.

This is question presented to the court:

Issue: Whether state no-surcharge laws unconstitutionally restrict speech conveying price information (as the Eleventh Circuit has held), or regulate economic conduct (as the Second and Fifth Circuits have held).

New York does not allow different prices for cash and credit card purchases - this is commonly done for gas around here. Doing so gives you an indication - communicates to us, which is speech - of what credit card transactions cost. Is New York violating a merchant's free speech rights by limiting their ability to set different prices? Is pricing speech?