United States v. United Foods, Inc., 533 U.S. 405, 8 (2001)

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412

UNITED STATES v. UNITED FOODS, INC.

Opinion of the Court

far from being ancillary, is the principal object of the regulatory scheme.

In Glickman we stressed from the very outset that the entire regulatory program must be considered in resolving the case. In deciding that case we emphasized "the importance of the statutory context in which it arises." Id., at 469. The California tree fruits were marketed "pursuant to detailed marketing orders that ha[d] displaced many aspects of independent business activity." Id., at 469. Indeed, the marketing orders "displaced competition" to such an extent that they were "expressly exempted from the antitrust laws." Id., at 461. The market for the tree fruit regulated by the program was characterized by "[c]ollective action, rather than the aggregate consequences of independent competitive choices." Ibid. The producers of tree fruit who were compelled to contribute funds for use in cooperative advertising "d[id] so as a part of a broader collective enterprise in which their freedom to act independently [wa]s already constrained by the regulatory scheme." Id., at 469. The opinion and the analysis of the Court proceeded upon the premise that the producers were bound together and required by the statute to market their products according to cooperative rules. To that extent, their mandated participation in an advertising program with a particular message was the logical concomitant of a valid scheme of economic regulation.

The features of the marketing scheme found important in Glickman are not present in the case now before us. As respondent notes, and as the Government does not contest, cf. Brief for Petitioners 25, almost all of the funds collected under the mandatory assessments are for one purpose: generic advertising. Beyond the collection and disbursement of advertising funds, there are no marketing orders that regulate how mushrooms may be produced and sold, no exemption from the antitrust laws, and nothing preventing individual producers from making their own marketing decisions.

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