Gator: The Other White Meat

This First Amendment decision by the U.S. Fifth Circuit has a distinct Louisiana flavor, but somehow escaped our attention when it was originally rendered on April 2. The plaintiff, Pelts & Skins LLC, Louisiana's and the world's largest alligator-farming operation, alleged that the La. Dept. of Wildlife & Fisheries collected various fees from Pelts & Skins to help pay for generic marketing of alligator products. Pelts & Skins disagreed with the message conveyed by generic marketing, because it considered its alligator products superior to those of its competitors, and sued to prevent DWF from imposing mandatory fees on Pelts & Skins to subsidize a message with which Pelts & Skins disagreed. The district court granted an injunction, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed, concluding that "the generic marketing at issue is not government speech, but government facilitation of the private speech of fur and alligator harvesters." Pelts & Skins, LLC v. Landreneau, No. 03-30523, slip op. (5th Cir. Apr. 2, 2004), 2004 WL 725275.

Posted by RPW at May 24, 2004 06:06 PM