We will hear argument first this morning in case 231187, the Food and Drug Administration versus RJ Reynolds Vapor Company.

Mr. Surrey.

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court, the Court of Appeals has effectively nullified the Tobacco Control Act's restrictions on venue.

Under the Act, an adversely affected person may challenge the denial of an

application only in its home circuit or the D.C. Circuit. But under the decision below, an

applicant may challenge a denial in any circuit, anywhere in the country, so long as it can enlist

a local retailer willing to join its petition.

That decision is wrong in two different ways.

First, the only person entitled to challenge the denial of an application is the applicant itself,

not the applicant's retailers.

Retailers are bystanders to the application process.

They don't submit information to the agency,

don't participate in the agency's review process,

don't receive the order issued by the agency at the end of that process,

and don't even get to see the full contents of the application or administrative record.

Their interests lie outside the zone that Congress sought to protect. Second, even if the retailers could sue,

applicants don't get to ride in on their coattails. Venue must be established separately for

each party, and an applicant, the manufacturers here, may not lay venue based on the retailer's residence.

The judgment of the Fifth Circuit should be reversed.

So if your argument is that only applicants are covered, what do you do with the language any person adversely affected?

The language any person adversely affected requires the Court to infer the class of appropriate

plaintiffs from the structure of the statute.

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