# United States v. United Foods, Inc.

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 25, 2001 · 533 U.S. 405

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9434138

## Case

- **Full name:** UNITED STATES Et Al. v. UNITED FOODS, INC.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 25, 2001
- **Citations:** 533 U.S. 405; 121 S. Ct. 2334; 150 L. Ed. 2d 438; 2001 U.S. LEXIS 4904
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Thomas
- **Judges:** Kennedy, Rehnquist, Stevens, Scalia, Souter, Thomas, Breyer, Ginsburg, O'Connor
- **Cited by:** 241 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Disagreed with by Livestock Marketing Association v. United States Department Of Agriculture, 335 F.3d 711 (2003).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 2
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9434138

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- stating that, even if commercial speech is less protected than other speech, there is "no basis under either Glickman or our other precedents to sustain the compelled assessments,” but refusing to consider "whether the Government's interest could be considered substantial for …
- holding that the First Amendment “may prevent the government from compelling individuals to express certain views or from compelling certain individuals to pay subsidies for speech to which they object.”
- holding that regulations forcing mushroom producers to fund generic advertising violated the First Amendment, even though they "[did] not compel the expression of political or ideological views”
- holding that a mandatory assessment imposed on mushroom producers to support advertising promoting general mushroom sales violated the producer’s First Amendment right against compelled speech
- applying “First Amendment scrutiny” where speech effects were not incidental and noting that “those whose business and livelihood depend in some way upon the product involved no doubt deem First Amendment protection to be just as important for them as it is for other discrete,…

## Opinion text

Justice Thomas,
concurring.
I agree with the Court that Glickman v. Wileman Brothers & Elliott, Inc., 521 U. S. 457 (1997), is not controlling. I write separately, however, to reiterate my views that “paying money for the purposes of advertising involves speech,” and that “compelling speech raises a First Amend *419 ment issue just as much as restricting speech.” Id., at 504 (Thomas, J., dissenting). Any regulation that compels the funding of advertising must be subjected to the most stringent First Amendment scrutiny.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9434138. Public record. Not legal advice.