Summary
The United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana grants Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and denies Attorney General Liz Murrill’s cross-motion in a challenge to Louisiana’s PLUS Act regulating compensated veterans’ benefits services. The court concludes that the Act’s compelled disclosure requirement, as applied to the plaintiffs, fails the Central Hudson standard for commercial speech because the defendant did not adequately demonstrate that the disclosure directly advances a substantial governmental interest or is no more extensive than necessary. The excerpt does not include the order’s date or page number.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Louisiana Revised Statutes section 29:296 is conflict-preempted because its restrictions on veterans-benefits representatives obstruct Congress's purposes and objectives under the federal veterans-benefits statutory and regulatory scheme.
- Whether section 29:296(E)(1)'s mandatory disclosure violates Plaintiffs' First Amendment right to free expression as applied to Plaintiffs.
- Whether the Act violates the Contracts Clause.
Holdings
- The PLUS Act is conflict-preempted because its significant restrictions on services offered by veterans-benefits representatives obstruct Congress's objective of ensuring that veterans have access to authorized, qualified private representatives to assist them in pursuing federal veterans-benefits claims.
- Louisiana Revised Statutes section 29:296(E)(1)'s mandatory disclosure violates Plaintiffs' First Amendment right to free expression as applied to them.
Key quotations
“The Act is preempted by its conflict with federal law.”
“Without at least some evidence to support the reasonableness of the Act’s required disclosure, the Court finds that the Act violates Plaintiffs’ rights under the First Amendment and is therefore unconstitutional as applied to Plaintiffs.”
“The Court finds that the Act, as written, necessarily impedes the realization of Congress's goal of ensuring that veterans have access to qualified representatives to assist them in pursuing claims for VA benefits, in violation of the Supremacy Clause.”
Factual background
Louisiana enacted Senate Bill 159, the Preserving Lawful Utilization of Services for Veterans Act, codified at Louisiana Revised Statutes section 29:296. The Act regulates persons compensated for advising, assisting, or consulting on veterans' benefits matters by imposing fee caps, compensation restrictions, disclosure requirements, and other conditions. Plaintiffs are a veterans-advocacy nonprofit and a law practice that provide veterans-benefits services, including representation before federal veterans-benefits tribunals. Plaintiffs challenged the Act because they alleged that its restrictions conflicted with federal regulation of veterans-benefits representatives and that its mandated disclosure compelled unconstitutional commercial speech.
Procedural history
Plaintiffs filed suit challenging the PLUS Act under the Supremacy Clause, the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and the Contracts Clause, and initially sought a temporary restraining order. The court continued the TRO hearing after the Attorney General's Office represented that it would not enforce the Act during the litigation. The court dismissed Governor Landry for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction but denied the Attorney General's motion to dismiss, finding that Plaintiffs had standing and that the Act applied to them. The parties then filed cross-motions for summary judgment.