No Surprise: Supreme Court Won't Hear Retail Challenge to Wine Shipping Ban

The news: The U.S. Supreme Court again rejected an attempt to overturn a state's ban on direct-to-consumer shipments by out-of-state retailers.

That the court rejected an appeal in Wilson v. Miller is a surprise to anyone is hard to understand.

Wine retail advocates, of course, thought this was in the bag. After all, the high court had previously struck down interstate shipping bans in the famous Granholm case which involved a winery shipping direct to consumers in another state.

And Wilson v. Miller was presented to the high court as a "conflict between circuits" case. The First and Sixth Circuits have held states cannot automatically ban out-of-state retailers if they allow in-state retailers to deliver. But the Third, Fourth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Circuits all have ruled that out-of-state retail shipping bans are valid.

But Granholm was never about retailers or wholesalers, who by definition do business locally. It was about a supplier seeking to sell into a market in which wholesalers and retailers denied consumers the ability to buy the supplier's product.

Prior to Granholm, wholesalers and retailers could deny a supplier access to consumers because the three-tier system required the supplier to go through a wholesaler before a product can reach a retailer. After Granholm, a supplier can reach a consumer directly.

The Constitution's objective of furthering interstate commerce is fulfilled simply by the consumer being able to order direct from the winery or brewery or distillery.

Monday's Supreme Court order rejecting the appeal should end the discussion about what retailers can do under the 21sxt Amendment. They are, of course, still free to ask state legislatures to amend their laws.