Cigar Association of America v. United States Food & Drug Administration
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
964 F.3d 56 (2020)
- Written by Abby Roughton, JD
Facts
The Tobacco Control Act (TCA) provided that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) (defendant) “may” require warnings on tobacco products if the FDA finds that a warning would be appropriate to protect public health. The TCA specified that the FDA’s public-health finding “shall be determined” based on the whole population, including users and nonusers of tobacco products. The TCA further provided that in determining whether a warning would be appropriate, the FDA “shall . . . take into account” whether the regulation would likely increase or decrease the number of tobacco users (i.e., because new users would start using or because existing users would stop using). Acting pursuant to its authority under the TCA, the FDA promulgated regulations that required health warnings to be included in packaging and advertising for cigars and pipe tobacco. The newly required warnings took up four times more space on packaging than existing warnings, and the FDA estimated that implementing the warning requirements would cost over $100 million. The FDA found that the warnings would help consumers understand the health risks of smoking. However, the FDA did not consider whether the warnings would likely affect the number of smokers. The Cigar Association of America and other cigar and pipe-tobacco industry associations (collectively, the industry) (plaintiffs) challenged the FDA’s regulations in federal district court. The industry asserted that the regulations violated the TCA and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) because the FDA had failed to consider the warnings’ effect on the number of smokers. The parties cross-moved for summary judgment. The district court granted summary judgment in the FDA’s favor, and the industry appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Kastas, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 814,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,300 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.