Wine and spirit buyers could be a step closer to getting tens of millions in refunds from the PLCB
The PLCB has lost again in a five-year court case over its $1.75-per-bottle shipping fee charged to customers. More than $50 million in fees could be refunded, a lawyer said.
The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, losing yet again in a five-year court battle, may be a step closer to refunding potentially at least $50 million in handling fees to some wine and spirit customers.
In a decision published Thursday, Commonwealth Court rejected the PLCB’s claim that a lawsuit filed in 2020 by customers using its special liquor order system had been barred by the statute of limitations. The SLO system allows discerning buyers, as well as restaurants and bars, to order bottles not available in Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores.
In 2016, a state law required the PLCB to implement a system that allowed wineries and merchants to ship products directly to customers by June 2017. The state law also prohibited the PLCB from charging a handling fee on direct delivery orders. The system did not go online until June 2022.
Over those five years, the PLCB collected a $1.75 handling fee for each 750-ml bottle, which customers had to pick up at a PLCB store or warehouse.
The litigation began in 2020 after the pandemic briefly shuttered the state stores and heightened the demand for direct shipping.
The PLCB has lost at every turn after Commonwealth Court ordered the agency to implement a direct delivery system in 2020. During one hearing in 2021, a judge asked a PLCB attorney: “How do we get the government to stop violating the law?”
Last year, the state Supreme Court affirmed — by a 5-0 vote — Commonwealth Court’s 2022 decision. The high court rejected the PLCB’s arguments that it was not a “person” under the law and as such could not be sued, and that the agency was covered by sovereign immunity and could not be forced to pay damages for not complying with the law.
Commonwealth Court last week rejected the PLCB’s argument that the case had been filed past a six-month statute of limitations. The petitioners had countered that the six-month limit applies only to suits against individual officers, while this case cited a state agency, whose limit is six years.
A PLCB spokesperson said Monday that the agency does not comment on ongoing litigation.
“The PLCB unlawfully collected millions of dollars from the citizens of this commonwealth,” said John G. Papianou, a partner at Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads in Philadelphia and counsel for the petitioners. “It’s sad they won’t return it. That would be doing the right thing. Instead, we have a state agency doing everything it conceivably can to keep that money.”
Papianou said he would seek class-action status for everyone who paid the $1.75 handling fee from June 2017 — when direct delivery was supposed to start — through June 2022, when it was implemented. He estimated that total fees could exceed $50 million.
Papianou said he would ask Commonwealth Court to schedule a case management conference for class certification.
He said he had no idea of a timeline for the case’s resolution or when refunds might be forthcoming.
Among the plaintiffs are Log Cabin, a restaurant in Leola, Lancaster County, and MFW Wine Co., a wine brokerage in the Philadelphia suburbs.