MN Bullion Dealer law Severability hearing, May 22, 2023, Minneapolis Federal Courthouse 10:00 AM

Tomthecoinguy · May 21, 2023 7:46AM

As many of you know, the 8th Circuit court of appeals declared parts of the MN coin bullion dealer law unconstitutional. They also sent it back to the district court to determine if the unconstitutional parts can be removed (severed) from the law, or if the whole law should be struck down. Earlier in the year the district court ordered written arguments on the issue. In an unusual move, after reviewing the written arguments the judge ordered oral arguments (usually if there are going to be oral arguments the date for arguments is selected before the due date on the written arguments). This could indicate she is having trouble deciding on the issue and or she has questions on the written arguments.

It will just be the lawyers taking, but the oral arguments are open to the public and you are welcome to come.

Date: 5/22/2023

Time: 10:00 AM CDT

Location: Diana E. Murphy United States Courthouse
300 South Fourth Street - Suite 202
Minneapolis, MN 55415

Courtroom: 13W

Judge: Nancy E. Brasel

I plan to be there and I will report back to the message board after the hearing.

cladking · May 21, 2023 7:53AM

Is this the onerous laws passed several years ago making dealing in coins or even having coin shows almost impossible in the state?

Tomthecoinguy · May 21, 2023 9:22AM

@cladking said:
Is this the onerous laws passed several years ago making dealing in coins or even having coin shows almost impossible in the state?

That is the same law you are thinking of, we already had the 8th Circuit court of appeals declare the law unconstitutional, because it had the result of MN regulating commerce that happened totally outside of it boarders (It would regulate the transaction of a MN resident even if they were out of the state.) The 8th circuit then sent it back to the district court to determine if the unconstitutional provisions can be removed, or if the whole law goes down. In the hearing tomorrow, we will be arguing that you cannot fix the issues without totally gutting the law and leaving it totally meaningless, therefor the courts should just totally strike the law.

There was a coin show exemption put into the law, so coin shows have been largely spared. The law definitely made things challenging for the small dealer and a lot of them went out of business. Not surprisingly the law was originally pushed by the large coin dealers including Asset Marketing Services (AMS).

Fingers crossed that the law will be totally gone soon, and this numismatic nightmare can be over. I will have more to say about it after the hearing tomorrow.

ricko · May 22, 2023 5:29AM

Good luck with the elimination of what was a bad law to begin with and certainly unconstitutional. Cheers, RickO

BStrauss3 · May 22, 2023 6:06AM

This is Styczinski v. Arnold, right? No. 21-2936.

Appeals court:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=7535897976313831101

III. Conclusion
For the reasons stated herein, we reverse the district court's partial grant of the Commissioner's motion to dismiss and the district court's partial denial of the Bullion Traders' motion for summary judgment. On remand, we leave to the district court to decide in the first instance whether the extraterritorial provisions of Chapter 80G, as amended, are severable from the remainder of the statute.

Original district court decision (case now known as 0:20-cv-02019-NEB-TNL):
https://casetext.com/case/styczinski-v-arnold

If anybody wants the briefs and Tom's response, ping me. I have a PACER account and I'm not afraid to use it.

TwoSides2aCoin · May 22, 2023 7:52AM

We should flash mob that place, everyone with a loupe around their neck, in typical goin geek fashion. ( don't forget the mustard stain).

MrScience · May 22, 2023 8:49AM

Minneapolis has a tradition of peaceful protests - one at the courthouse might be in order.

Tomthecoinguy · May 22, 2023 7:29PM

We had our hearing on severability today. It started out with the court schedule being wrong. The notice from the judge said the hearing was at 11:00, but the court website said the hearing was scheduled for 10:00. We came at 10:00 just to be safe, and it turns out the hearing was at 11:00. We made good use of the extra time and used it for more prep time.

I got to sit at the big plaintiff's table for the hearing, next to my lawyer. Then when the judge came in, she started out by saying the hearing was going to be different than what we expected. A Supreme Court decision came down 11 days ago, National Pork Producers Council v. Ross. She said based on that decision she wondered if the 8th Circuit would have ruled in our favor.

We had not seen the decision, and proposed we have a briefing schedule on the new decision and how it affects our case.

The State then commented about the new SCOTUS case. They said they did not think that case would have changed the 8th Circuits decision, but could have an affect on the severability issue currently before the court. The judge seemed surprised by the States comments.

The state position was obviously a relief to us, because if the State doesn't think it hurts our case, it is hard to see how it could. I have since seen the SCOTUS decision, and if anything I think it reenforces what the 8th Circuit said in our case.

In the end, the state and we agreed to come up with a briefing schedule on the affect of Pork Council v. Ross on our case. We will have a new briefing schedule in about a week. We expect that the State will go first, and then we will have a response.