Sorrell v. IMS Health

<div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sorrell v. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMS_Health" title="IMS Health" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">IMS Health</a> Inc., 564 U.S. 552 (2011), was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States" title="Supreme Court of the United States" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">United States Supreme Court</a> case in which the Court held that a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont" title="Vermont" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Vermont</a> statute that restricted the sale, disclosure, and use of records that revealed the prescribing practices of individual doctors violated the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" title="First Amendment to the United States Constitution" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">First Amendment</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[A]</a>
<div id="toc" class="toc" style="border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); padding: 7px; display: table; zoom: 1;"><div id="toctitle" style="direction: ltr; text-align: center;"><h2 style="background: none; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border: none; display: inline; line-height: 1.3;">Contents</h2>  [<a role="button" tabindex="0" id="togglelink" style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none; cursor: pointer;">hide</a>] </div><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#Background" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">1Background</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#Opinion" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">2Opinion</a><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#Dissent" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">2.1Dissent</a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#Notes" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">3Notes</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#References" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">4References</a></li></ul></div><h2 style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Background[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: Background" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2>In 2007, Vermont passed the Prescription Confidentiality Law which required among other things that records containing a doctor's prescribing practices not be sold or used for marketing purposes unless the doctor consented. The law was a response to a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_Medical_Society" title="Vermont Medical Society" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Vermont Medical Society</a> resolution stating that using the prescribing history of doctors in marketing was an intrusion into the way doctors practice medicine.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[2]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[3]</a> The Vermont Medical Society had found that the marketing efforts of pharmaceutical companies used in large part the data of individual doctors' prescribing patterns, sold to the companies by pharmacies without the doctors' consent<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[4]</a> and successfully lobbied the Vermont legislature to enact the law.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[5]</a>Data mining companies and pharmaceutical manufactures contended that the law violated their First Amendment rights and sought declaratory and injunctive relief against Vermont officials.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[B]</a> The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_District_of_Vermont" title="United States District Court for the District of Vermont" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">United States District Court for the District of Vermont</a> denied relief; the plaintiffs appealed to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_Second_Circuit" title="United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit</a> which reversed, holding that the law violated the First Amendment by restricting the speech of the companies without adequate justification.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[C]</a> Vermont's Attorney General appealed to the The Supreme Court, which granted <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certiorari" title="Certiorari" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">certiorari</a> to resolve the contradiction of a ruling of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_First_Circuit" title="United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit</a> US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which had overturned similar laws in New Hampshire and Maine, concluding that the laws regulated economic conduct. not commercial speech.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[6]</a><h2 style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Opinion[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: Opinion" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2>
The first finding of the Court was that the law placed content and speaker based restrictions on speech.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[D]</a> Citing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_v.Discovery_Network,Inc." class="mw-redirect" title="Cincinnati v. Discovery Network, Inc." style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Cincinnati v. Discovery Network, Inc.</a>, the Court noted that these restrictions warranted heightened judicial scrutiny.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#cite_note-11" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[E</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#cite_note-11" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associate_Justice" title="Associate Justice" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Associate Justice</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kennedy" title="Anthony Kennedy" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Anthony Kennedy</a> delivered the opinion of the Court, which <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Justice_Roberts" class="mw-redirect" title="Chief Justice Roberts" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Chief Justice Roberts</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_Scalia" class="mw-redirect" title="Justice Scalia" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Justice Scalia</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Thomas" title="Clarence Thomas" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Justice Thomas</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_Alito" class="mw-redirect" title="Justice Alito" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Justice Alito</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_Sotomayor" class="mw-redirect" title="Justice Sotomayor" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Justice Sotomayor</a> joined. The Court held that the law violated the First Amendment and affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeals.The Court rejected Vermont's argument that the law was only a commercial regulation and not a regulation of speech on the grounds that the law imposed more than an incidental burden on speech.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#cite_note-12" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[F]</a>The second and final finding of the Court was that Vermont did not meet its burden to justify its content-based law as consistent with the First Amendment. According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees,State_Univ.of_N.Y.v.Fox" class="mw-redirect" title="Board of Trustees, State Univ. of N. Y. v. Fox" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Board of Trustees, State Univ. of N. Y. v. Fox</a>, Vermont must demonstrate that the law directly advances a substantial government interest.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#cite_note-13" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[G]</a> The Court rejected Vermont's claims that the law was necessary to protect <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_privacy" title="Medical privacy" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">medical privacy</a> and achieve improved public healthcare.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#cite_note-14" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[H]</a><h3 style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: none; line-height: 1.6;">Dissent[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.&action=edit&section=3" title="Edit section: Dissent" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h3><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associate_Justice" title="Associate Justice" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">
Associate Justice</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Breyer" title="Stephen Breyer" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Stephen Breyer</a> wrote a dissenting opinion, which <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_Ginsburg" class="mw-redirect" title="Justice Ginsburg" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Justice Ginsburg</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_Kagan" class="mw-redirect" title="Justice Kagan" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Justice Kagan</a> joined. Breyer argued that the law should be reviewed as an economic regulation, not under a heightened standard applied for First Amendment issues. Breyer found that the legitimate regulatory objectives outweighed the small harm done to First Amendment interests.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v.IMS_Health_Inc.#cite_note-16" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[I]</a> Breyer also noted that applying a strict First Amendment standard whenever a legislative program burdened speech would give judges the power to choose to undermine or support legislative efforts.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrell_v._IMS_Health_Inc.#cite_note-17" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[J
]</a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div>