Rubin v. Coors Brewing Co.

Coors Brewing Company (plaintiff) applied to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) for approval of labels and advertisements that included the alcohol content of Coors’s beer. The BATF rejected Coors’s application based on Section 205(e)(2) of the Federal Alcohol Administration Act, which restricted the disclosure of alcohol content in beer labeling and advertising. Specifically, the statute prohibited alcohol-content disclosures on beer labels unless required by state law. However, the statute (1) allowed brewers to signal high alcohol content with the term “malt liquor,” (2) allowed wine and spirit manufacturers to disclose the alcohol content of their products, and (3) mandated the disclosure of alcohol content for wine with above 14 percent alcohol. The statute also prohibited alcohol-content disclosures in beer advertising in 18 states that had state laws prohibiting such content disclosures. Coors filed a declaratory-judgment action against United States Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin (defendant), asserting that the disclosure ban violated the First Amendment. The government argued that the ban discouraged so-called strength wars, in which brewers would try to compete for customers based on the potency of their beers. The district court upheld the advertising restrictions but struck down the labeling ban. The government appealed the labeling-ban decision. The appellate court affirmed. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.