COSTCO WHOLESALE v. HOEN
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today released an opinion in COSTCO WHOLESALE v. HOEN, No. 06-35538, a federal appeal. The panel consisted of Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, A. Wallace Tashima, and Marsha S. Berzon, Circuit Judges.
O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge:
In these consolidated appeals, we must decide whether certain restrictions imposed by the State of Washington on the sale of wine and beer are preempted by federal antitrust laws. If the challenged restraints are subject to federal preemption, we must then decide whether they might be otherwise saved by operation of the State’s powers under Section 2 of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution. I A In early 1933, the Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution was passed in Congress. It was then ratified by convention in 36 states and went into effect in December 1933, ending this country’s experiment with Prohibition. Importantly, the Twenty-first Amendment not only repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, but it also, in. . .