Can a State Bar Its Merchants from Charging fees for Credit-Card Purchase?

choi

Robin Sidel, Card Fee: Retail's Biggest Debate. Wall Street Journal, Sept 30, 2016.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/shou ... l-decide-1475166779

Quote:

Merchants "defray the fees levied by card companies by tacking surcharges on to customers’ bills. Ten US states and some countries ban the practice outright. The Supreme Court agreed Thursday [Sept 29] to decide whether those bans are legal.

"The surcharges are only permitted on credit cards and can’t be levied on debit cards, which are tied to checking accounts and carry lower fees for merchants.

My comment:
(a) In mid-1990s, I went to Boston's Chinatown to buy a Cantonese 烤鸭 with a credit card. The operator wanted to charge me more than with cash. I though the operator was evading tax but bought the duck reluctantly with cash, nonetheless. I brought the roast duck to a pot luck but no American touched it, who considered it too fatty.

(b) The case below:

Expressions Hair Design LLC v Schneiderman (CA2 2015) 808 F.3d 118
http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/deci ... 1e13481be/2/hilite/

In the slip opinion,
(i) The synopsis (legal term for "summary") in pages 1 and 2 of slip opinion is prepared by a court reporter, and not part of court opinion.
(ii) Read only pages 3 and 4 of slip opinion describing procedural history of the case. That is all you need to know; because US district court for the Southern District of New York and Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit have opposite interpretation of constitutional law, we should await US supreme court to decide.

(c) The title of supreme court case is also xpressions Hair Design LLC v Schneiderman; the loser of the case below, Expressions Hair Design (plaintiff/appellant below), successfully petitions supreme court to hear the case.
(d) "Eleven states—California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma and Texas—and Puerto Rico have laws that prohibit merchants from charging consumers with surcharges on credit card transactions. Minnesota prohibits a seller of goods or services that establishes and is responsible for its own customer credit card from imposing a surcharge on a purchaser who elects to use that credit card in lieu of payment by cash, check, or similar means. The laws in California and New York have been challenged in court."
Heather Morton, Credit or Debit Card Surcharge State Statutes. National Conference on State legislatures (NCSL), updated on Oct 26, 2015.
www.ncsl.org/research/financial- ... arges-statutes.aspx

The quotation starts with "eleven states." It is wrong, Puerto Rico is not a state. The Wall Street Journal report is correct on this point.