MICHIGAN JUDGE SIDES WITH OUT-OF-STATE RETAILERS

A Michigan District Court Judge sided with the Specialty Wine Retailers in a preliminary ruling this week. In the case of Siesta Market v. Granholm, the judge sided with the plaintiff, represented by Alex Tanford and Robert Epstein, on the grounds that Granholm not only covers wineries, but retailers as well.

“The Court will not construe Granholm to explicitly exclude out-of-state retailers from the Supreme Court’s holding solely because the Supreme Court makes no mention of them in its opinion…. In Granholm, the Supreme Court focused more on discrimination against out-of-state economic interest and access to out-of-state markets, rather than, specifically, on out-of-state wine producers,” wrote the Michigan judge.

The decision is in stark contrast to a recent ruling in a New York District Court that upheld a law that bars out-of-state retailers from shipping directly to consumers on the grounds that Granholm applies only to wineries. The NY judge said the following:

“Because in-state retailers are the last tier in the state’s three-tier system, plaintiffs’ challenge to the ABC Law’s provisions…is clearly an attack on the three-tier system itself. However, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the constitutionality of the three-tier system in Granholm, and therefore the plaintiffs’ challenge must fail.”

The SWRA has a similar lawsuit in Texas that will likely be influenced by the recent decision in New York and preliminary decision in Michigan.