Judge issues injunction in Indiana

Opponents of Indiana’s controversial vaping law scored a victory on Aug. 19 when a federal judge ruled in favor of a Florida e-liquid manufacturer that argued the law was unconstitutional.

Richard Young, chief judge for the Southern District of Indiana, granted a preliminary injunction that applies only to the one company, GoodCat LLC, after finding that it had a reasonable likelihood of success in overturning at least part of the law, according to a story in the Indiana Business Journal.

Young ordered the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission to issue the company a manufacturing permit for e-liquids until its lawsuit against the state can be fully heard.

The U.S. Constitution’s commerce clause “implicitly prohibits state and local governments, even in the absence of federal legislation, from enacting laws that discriminate against or excessively burden interstate commerce,” Young wrote in his ruling.

“If the court denied preliminary relief, GoodCat would have to withdraw its commercial presence in Indiana,” Young wrote. “GoodCat would incur lost profits during the pendency of this litigation and have no way to recover. More fundamentally, however, a reasonable likelihood of a constitutional violation, such as GoodCat alleges, rises to the level of irreparable harm for the purposes of injunctive relief.”