CopyCited 15 times | Published | Supreme Court of Florida
...Willis, II and James D. Beasley of Ausley, McMullen, McGehee, Carothers & Proctor, Tallahassee, for Beer Industry of Florida, Inc. Earle D. Bellamy, II of Bradley, Campbell & Carney, Golden, Colo., for Adolph Coors Co., intervenor-appellee. ENGLAND, Justice. Section 563.06(1), Florida Statutes (1975), provides that all taxable malt beverages possessed for sale or resale in Florida (with exceptions not relevant here) "shall have printed or lithographed on the crown or can lid thereof, the word `Florida'......
...[of beverage of the Department of Business Regulation] for approval as to the `Florida' designation." Belk-James, Inc., a distributor who contracted to purchase Coors beer in South Carolina and sell it in Florida, challenges the constitutionality of Section 563.06(1), principally on the ground that it violates the due process clauses of the United States and Florida Constitutions [1] in that the statutory requirements of imprinting "Florida" on all container tops, and of permitting manufacturers...
...[4] 1. Justification as a regulation to promote wholesome products. The Division argues that the perishable nature of malt beverages demands that beer be shipped directly to Florida in order to ensure freshness, and that both of the requirements in Section 563.06(1) reasonably advance this objective....
...udits and inspections. Belk-James basically argues that since the state neither places nor supervises the placement of "Florida" designations on beer containers, it cannot know which malt beverage containers have been taxed. The Division argues that Section 563.06(1) is one facet of an integrated statutory scheme for regulating and taxing beer sales, and that the Legislature might reasonably have concluded that malt beverage containers marked by the manufacturer with an approved "Florida" design...
...nce or absence of "Florida" designations on beer container tops. [11] These audits thus provide a viable means for the detection of beer which enters the Florida market through unregulated, illegal channels. We are satisfied that the requirements of Section 563.06(1) bear a sufficient relationship to revenue collection to withstand the due process attack....
...Holley v. Adams,
238 So.2d 401 (Fla. 1970). Since we begin with a presumption that acts of the Legislature are constitutional, [12] and that all reasonable doubts are to be resolved in favor of their validity, [13] we have no difficulty concluding that Section
563.06(1), Florida Statutes (1975), meets the due process requirements of the United States and Florida Constitutions. As a final point, Belk-James has suggested that if this statute is constitutional, it is entitled to a declaration that it has "substantially" complied with Section
563.06(1) because its exclusive distribution contract for Florida effectively makes Belk-James the "manufacturer" of Coors beer for state regulatory purposes....
...OVERTON, C.J., and BOYD, SUNDBERG, HATCHETT and KARL, JJ., concur. ADKINS, J., dissents. NOTES [1] U.S.Const. amend. XIV; Art. I, § 9, Fla. Const. [2] This matter comes to us by direct appeal from an order of the Leon County Circuit Court upholding the constitutionality of Section 563.06. We have jurisdiction for the appeal. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. [3] Related to the argument that Section 563.06(1) achieves these two objectives are the general assertions that the state may legitimately regulate the beer industry, and that these provisions are an integral part of the regulatory scheme necessary to carry out the state's program....
...ns or proof, which it had the burden to develop, showing that a distinction between packaging beer and other alcoholic beverages lacks a rational foundation. See Steigerwalt v. City of St. Petersburg,
316 So.2d 554 (Fla. 1975). It also suggests that Section
563.06(1) unduly interferes with interstate commerce a position wholly inconsistent with the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution. See California v. LaRue,
409 U.S. 109, 114,
93 S.Ct. 390,
34 L.Ed.2d 342 (1972). [4] Belk-James acknowledges that these are permissible state objectives, but simply argues that Section
563.06(1) bears no reasonable relationship to them....
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Cited as authorityMembreno (2016)phrase: "rule_authority"
