Reynolds bill in South Carolina (H 4074) would tax, require license to sell “vapor products”

[BlueSnake]

I don't think a B&M location would want to turn away orders from within their own state.

 

[Bill Godshall]

AgentAnia inquired:

Can you give us a ballpark-figure cost for such a lawsuit? Would this have to be individually for each state, or could it be done collectively, or would one such successful suit knock the rest of the states' laws down?

No, especially since litigation involving the Internet is in its infancy.

Also, the costs of litigation are usually greater (and sometime far greater in protracted litigation against state governments) than are originally anticipated.

In order to file a lawsuit, an aggrieved party would need to obtain legal standing in the court, which typically requires potential litigants to have be cited for violating a law by the Attorney General (or other designated state enforcement agency). For the foreseeable future, the only Internet vendors that might be cited for violating these laws (i.e. requiring independent 3rd party age verification services) are vendors located in the States where these laws are enacted (as states would try enforce the law against in-state vendors before trying to do so against out-of-state or out-of-country vendors).

But just because these laws are passed doesn't mean that the State agency responsible for enforcement will actually do anything to enforce the law against in-state Internet vendors (especially if/when the agency's attorneys realize that actively enforcing the law could result in the agency getting sued, and losing a precedent setting Internet lawsuit in federal court).

Even though the originally stated purpose of all of these laws was to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, and even though more than 20 states have enacted laws banning e-cigarette sales to minors, I'm not even aware of any citations, warning letters or enforcement actions issued to any e-cigarette vendors (except for the warning letters sent by the CA AG a year or two ago).

 

[Berylanna]

AgentAnia inquired:



No, especially since litigation involving the Internet is in its infancy.

Also, the costs of litigation are usually greater (and sometime far greater in protracted litigation against state governments) than are originally anticipated.

In order to file a lawsuit, an aggrieved party would need to obtain legal standing in the court, which typically requires potential litigants to have be cited for violating a law by the Attorney General (or other designated state enforcement agency). For the foreseeable future, the only Internet vendors that might be cited for violating these laws (i.e. requiring independent 3rd party age verification services) are vendors located in the States where these laws are enacted (as states would try enforce the law against in-state vendors before trying to do so against out-of-state or out-of-country vendors).

But just because these laws are passed doesn't mean that the State agency responsible for enforcement will actually do anything to enforce the law against in-state Internet vendors (especially if/when the agency's attorneys realize that actively enforcing the law could result in the agency getting sued, and losing a precedent setting Internet lawsuit in federal court).

Even though the originally stated purpose of all of these laws was to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, and even though more than 20 states have enacted laws banning e-cigarette sales to minors, I'm not even aware of any citations, warning letters or enforcement actions issued to any e-cigarette vendors (except for the warning letters sent by the CA AG a year or two ago).

Does this mean that an e-cig company that finds some other, more customer-friendly, way to never sell to a minor would probably never get busted? Or that if they got busted for not having the software, but the cops were unable to get e-cig stuff for a real minor, the vendor would probably win in court?

I'm thinking of a database of identity-verified existing customers. There might be cheaper ways to verify identity than age.

 

[AgentAnia]

Thank you for the reply, Mr. Godshall!

I'm aware that litigation against a government entity is costly, just wasn't sure how costly. If things came to that, however, one such lawsuit might be worth it to the industry as a whole.

Now I'm going to have to do some research about the "age verification" thing. Does the law specify which software/service must be used? Or how do they define successful "age verification"? (Am asking these questions to myself here...) God help me, I think I'm going to have to READ that bill...

Interesting about existing enforcement (or lack thereof)...

 

[Sm0kyBlue]

shakes my head.. sad state of affairs.. :/