Articles

Court refuses to halt Wisconsin's anti-competitive law on butter … for now

August 18, 2017 | By WENCONG FA

Minerva Dairy is an Ohio-based dairy that has sold its delicious artisanal butter to satisfied consumers in all 50 states. Recently, however, Wisconsin began enforcing a law designed to insulate in-state butter makers from competition. The law prevents out-of-state butter makers from selling their butter in Wisconsin, unless they go through the cos ...

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Licensed out : occupational licensing hurts, not helps

August 04, 2017 | By ANASTASIA BODEN

When Arty Vogt purchased a moving business with his wife Stephanie, he never thought that running it would be easy.  But he certainly didn’t think that he’d be shut down simply because the existing businesses didn’t want to compete with him. Unfortunately, Arty operated in West Virginia, which required movers to obtain a “C ...

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Ease occupational licensing, free people to work

July 27, 2017 | By ANASTASIA BODEN

Today we filed this comment letter with the FTC describing how easing occupational licensing would give Americans a pathway to prosperity.  The FTC has assembled an Economic Liberty Taskforce dedicated to addressing occupational licensing abuses, and is holding a roundtable today about how licensing affects people’s ability to move across ...

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Occupational de-licensing in Connecticut

July 07, 2017 | By CALEB TROTTER

Earlier this week Connecticut removed occupational licensing, registration, and certificate requirements for several professions. The de-licensing of an occupation is especially notable because of its rarity. A 2015 study authored by Dr. Robert J. Thornton and Dr. Edward J. Timmons, and published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, found tha ...

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Oregon Supreme Court cites broad statute in upholding egregious abuse of licensing power

June 08, 2017 | By ANASTASIA BODEN

We received an adverse ruling in our lawsuit on behalf of David Hansen, which challenged a ruling by the Oregon Board of Architects that David practiced unlicensed architecture when he created marketing drawings.  These drawings were not blueprints or plans; they were meant to help a property development company attract retailers to potential deve ...

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Georgia’s Certificate of Need laws harm patients

May 25, 2017 | By JEFF MCCOY

Usually a medical practice that provides innovative, cost-effective, and relatively less invasive care for patients would be seen as a benefit to the community it serves. But that is not the case in Georgia, where Women’s Surgical Center, LLC, has had to fight the state’s anti-competitive Certificate of Need (“CON”) laws in ...

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Governor Justice signs bill repealing West Virginia Competitor's Veto law

April 25, 2017 | By ANASTASIA BODEN

It’s a good day for economic liberty.  Governor Justice has signed SB 174—or as Arty Vogt calls it, “Stephanie’s law,”—which repeals West Virginia’s Competitor’s Veto statute. PLF represented Arty in a lawsuit challenging West Virginia’s licensing scheme for movers, which allowed existing busin ...

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South Carolina Supreme Court gets it right on economic protectionism

April 17, 2017 | By CALEB TROTTER

As pointed out by Eugene Volokh, the South Carolina Supreme Court recently considered a case in which the S.C. Department of Revenue defended a law on the sole basis of protecting one industry group (operators of small liquor stores) from competing with larger operations like Total Wine & More. The controversy arose because South Carolina law ...

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West Virginia is more free today than it was yesterday

April 07, 2017 | By ANASTASIA BODEN

This morning the West Virginia legislature passed a bill repealing their Certificate of Need law, also known as a “Competitor’s Veto” law.  Formerly, anybody who wanted to start a moving business there essentially had to ask their competitors for permission first.  When a budding entrepreneur applied for authority to operate a m ...