What was the free speech issue in the Bad Frog Brewery case

What was the free speech issue in the Bad Frog Brewery case? How did the court rule in the case? Why?

Solution

In this case there is a picture of frog on the bottle. A finger is extended in such a manner that it seems to represent an insulting human gesture.

Bad Frog argues that the frog\'s gesture conveys or refers to the \"flipping the bird\" and also the insulting human gesture. The issue here is that the court of law is of the opinion that the government has a substantial interest in protecting children from exposure to vulgarity and hence the label should not be used.

The court, in this case, applied the Intemediate Scrutiny test applicable to Commercial Speech cases. Intemediate Scrutiny test is a test used in some contexts to determine a law\'s constitutionality. To pass intermediate scrutiny, the challenged law must further an important government interest by means that are substantially related to that interest.

In this case the district court ruled in favor of banning the use of label of the frog. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the judgment of the district court and remanded the case for judgment to be entered in favor of Bad Frog.