May 6, 2008

Wisconsin Supreme Court Denies Students' Push for Cheap Drinks

Students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison won’t be raising a glass to a decision today by the state’s Supreme Court.

The court dismissed a lawsuit — filed in 2004 on behalf of students and other pub crawlers — that challenged local bars’ agreement to limit drink specials on weekends. The students had called the agreement an illegal price-fixing conspiracy and sought “tens of millions of dollars” in damages, the Associated Press reported.

But the pact — which began in 2002 and banned drink specials at more than 20 bars after 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays — was actually an effort to reduce binge drinking. The bars drew up the voluntary arrangement under pressure from university officials and city regulators, who had considered an all-out ban on drink specials in Madison.

“The defendants entered into their agreement as a direct response to the city’s increasing regulatory pressure,” exempting them from state antitrust law, Justice David Prosser wrote for a 3-to-1 majority. The dissenting justice said that the bars could have controlled binge drinking by, for example, not serving drunkards.

As for the ban’s effectiveness, the university was initially optimistic. In May 2003 it reported “declines in liquor-law violations and disorderly-conduct incidents during the first six months of the program.” But in March 2004 the university said that alcohol-related crime was on the rise and that the results of the ban were “inconclusive.”

For the past four years, while the lawsuit was pending, the ban was suspended. So this year’s seniors had plenty of chances to exercise their right to cheap beer. —Sara Lipka

Comments

1. Man, judges must be REALLY bored in Wisconsin. Unreal.

   — Eric    May 7, 08:18 AM    #

2. Drunk offspring of liberal fascists crying about drink-and-drown night costing them more of mommy and daddy’s dough…makes me want to start a riot. Where’s the SDS when you need them!!??

   — Douglas    May 7, 08:57 AM    #

3. Yes, yes, yes, it’s easy to pick on the legal profession, but for anyone who actually bothered to read the decision and the vigorous dissent (all 85 pages combined), this was not a frivolous suit. It was brought under a state law that prohibits horizontal price fixing. Ultimately, the court found that an immunity applied, thus they did not reach the question of whether the agreement amonst the bar owners violated the statute. Simply because the context of the suit (students suing to get a better buzz on) seems silly to some, does not mean there is not an important and meaningful legal issue to be addressed.

   — EAC    May 7, 09:08 AM    #

4. I don’t know whether the legal issue was very important as a use of public money and time, but that is simply a fact of life for our public judicial systems. Courts, for good or bad, can’t simply say a lawsuit is silly or not worth their time. They have to decide something about every single case filed, and justify through written opinions why the suit is being dismissed. So, it might well be a waste of time in this case, but it is a result of how the courts are structured. Imagine if a court simply ignored an issue, such as hate crimes or gender discrimination, that the judge might find silly but many others find extremely important. A court can dodge an issue, but it has to explain it in a written opinion for the world to review. That’s one of the legal traditions that provides a bit of a check on judges’ arbitrariness.

   — jpl    May 7, 09:33 AM    #

5. “Liberal Facists”? Riot? Wonder where the real problem here is.

   — Alex    May 7, 09:42 AM    #

6. I’m with EAC. This doesn’t seem frivolous at all. It’s a clear case of price-fixing. You can decide whether the public good of decreased consumption brought about by a higher price (assuming there is a negative externality of drinking.. DUI or whatever) outweighs the consumer loss of the inefficiently higher price. But regardless, a tax would be a lot more effective than a state-sanctioned cartel, which is what this is.

   — PLW    May 7, 09:48 AM    #

7. So, “You gotta fight for the right… to party”?

   These are the people evaluating faculty’s effectiveness in the classroom?

   Great.

   — liz    May 7, 10:10 AM    #

8. Let’s see —— Immunity from Anti-Trust Law in order to serve public good is O.K.

   Ergo, based on the same:

   1. All local sellers can jointly undertake price-fixing of all junk-food inclusive of the soda’s —- since this will limit the ill-effects of obesity.

   2. All local gas stations can jointly agree to raise the price of gasoline after the sale of the first five gallons to $10, since this will reduce the harmful effects of pollution, encourage energy savings, and is clearly for the greater good of the community.

   3. In order to reduce the ill-effects associated with late night loitering, all local movie houses/theaters can jointly agree to raise the price of theater/movie ticket prices of all shows after the early show (along with the increases of junk-food/sodas)

   4. Since main street is the venue for most late night incidents, these ill-effects can be minimized if all stores on main street were exempted from anti-trust laws, and allowed to ….

   I wonder about further ramifications —— does this making Anti-Trust Laws unconstitutional in WI?

   And, how about the argument that for the greater good of the community and to fight obesity all manufactures of potato chips decided to jointly enter into a price-fixing scheme for the city of Madison (or the County, or…) based on an exception granted by the local authorities?

   — zahid    May 7, 10:21 AM    #

9. Re #6 – I am not aware of any legal requirement that courts write an opinion.

   Re #10 – The court did not justify immunity from antitrust violation “to serve the public good.” It did so on the basis that governmental officials pressured the bar owners into price-fixing, thereby bringing into play the “state action” doctrine which holds that any action that would otherwise be an antitrust violation is not if it is compelled by the state.

   — Prof A    May 7, 10:58 AM    #

10. OK sorry — I should have said liberal socialists. Plenty of examples on the UW faculty for that category. As for riots at UW Madison, you can find one every Halloween.

    — Douglas    May 7, 03:23 PM    #

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