Watson v. Philip Morris - Opinion Announcement

Argument of Speaker

Mr. Speaker: Justice Breyer has the opinion of the court in two cases this morning.

Argument of Justice Breyer

Mr. Breyer: The first case is Watson versus Philip Morris and about Philip Morris is marketing of two brands of cigarette Marlboro and Cambridge Lights and when it markets them it says that they are light cigarettes that means they contain less tar and nicotine than other cigarettes.

The petitioners Loretta Lawson, Lisa Watson, they had filed a State Court Law suit claiming that when Philip Morris markets the cigarettes in that way they violate a state unfair business practice law.

Philip Morris removed the case to Federal Court under a statute that permits removal by “any officer of the United States or any agency thereof” but there is a parenthetical in there which says or any person acting under that officer.

Now, the lower courts held the removal even though it seems to talk about federal officers was permissible here because when Philip Morris tested and labeled the cigarettes it was acting under officers of the Federal Trade Commission which is the agency of the federal government so they could remove it.

But we disagree with that.

The basic question concerns the meaning of the term ‘acting under’ acting under a federal officer and we decide and we set forth the reasons that created length in our opinion that that term encompasses a private person.

When that person is subject to the guidance and control of the federal official that only affect private person also assists or helps to carry out the duties of tasks of the federal officer and what does that mean.

A case law provides some examples, as a case for example when the statute used to discover federal revenue officer and there was a person who wasn’t a federal revenue officer, he was in the army and he helped the revenue officer break up in illegal risky steal and in the process he chopped the suspect who was trying to escape through a hole in the wall and Tennessee indicted him for murder and he removed the case.

The court said, that was proper, you were aiding the federal official and there was another case where a group of federal prohibition agents were trying to do their work and they had a driver but the driver wasn’t working for the federal government but still the court said that driver even though is a private person was helping and assisting the federal officers so you’re within the statute but is so if you look at those cases just complying with the law is not the kind of help or assistance they’re talking about.

Even though in English sometime you could say a tax payer who fills out a complex form for a well-behaved federal prisoner you could say they are helping law enforcement but that isn’t the sense of help that is involved here.

So, history language president purpose all make clear that a company that’s regulated and just complies with a regulatory order even if it’s a very complicated one cannot remove under this probation.

Now, Philip Morris says that well, we are actually the delegatee of the Federal Trade Commission in doing testing of cigarettes.

Well, we’ve looked to that and we don’t see that they were employees of the Federal Trade Commission.

There is no agency principle relationship; there is no federal contract or government relationship.

The FTC does not pay Philip Morris to do this and we can’t find any formal order of delegation.

So we think it just a regulated company and a regulated isn’t really helping the federal government in the sense that this statute means.

So we reverse the circuit Court of Appeals and our decision is unanimous.