Sunday, February 15, 1998

West Texas is test site of 'veggie libel' laws

By KATIE FAIRBANK / Associated Press

AMARILLO, Texas (AP) -- West Texas is getting to the meat of agriculture disparagement laws with two test cases: Oprah Winfrey's ongoing beef defamation case and a libel lawsuit filed by emu owners against an auto manufacturer.

The statutes, frequently called "veggie libel laws," exist in 13 states. But plaintiffs in Amarillo are actually using them, specialists say.

"There is a frontier spirit here. These days in the 1990s, Texans don't shoot each other, they sue each other," said First Amendment law specialist Tom Baker.

Veggie libel statutes began sprouting up after "60 Minutes" aired a segment in 1989 that linked Alar, an apple growth regulator sprayed on the fruit, to cancer risks in children. The broadcast was based largely on a published report by the National Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group.

Worldwide sales of apples plummeted until Alar was taken off the market. The industry said it lost as much as $75 million.

Washington state apple growers filed a lawsuit accusing CBS of product disparagement, but the broadcasters were repeatedly vindicated in the federal courts. In 1996, the Supreme Court let stand rulings dismissing the $250 million class-action lawsuit.

"The Alar case was not under the veggie libel laws. It was a traditional libel case," said Erik Olson, a senior attorney for the NRDC. "The loss was used as the excuse to get these veggie libel laws."

Since the bruised apple industry lost the Alar case, agricultural-disparagement laws have passed in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Dakota, as well as Texas.

The laws were pushed by the American Feed Industry Association, which provided model bills through farm bureaus to state legislatures.

The laws are intended to prevent uninformed challenges to the wholesomeness of food products and allow producers to sue those who falsely disparage the products.

"A lot of it has to do with the frustration agriculture groups feel," Steven Kopperud, a senior vice president with the feed group, said about the lobbying effort to get the bills passed.

Kopperud said agricultural products, particularly meat, are harmed by animal activists who want to further their agendas.

"I think what a lot of people forget is that food production and food processing (are) not just faceless corporations. When you stand up and announce that meat, milk or eggs is going to make you sick, it affects the livelihood of farmers and ranchers," Kopperud said.

While Kopperud argues that the laws protect America's agriculture, the NRDC says the statutes are meant to blunt criticism.

"I think the point from the agribusiness side is to shut up its critics and to keep people from questioning about food safety," Olson said. "Biblical laws say some food is tainted. Can you sue God? At what point do you draw the line?"

Until the recent case by Texas cattlemen against Ms. Winfrey, the state agriculture-disparagement laws have not been tested in court.

"What's different about the Oprah case is there are deep pockets on both sides," said Baker, a professor at Texas Tech University. "They've both got the time and the money, and both sides are hunkered down ... This is the ticket for one side to go the Supreme Court."

In the lawsuit involving an April 1996 episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show," a group of Texas cattlemen argue that viewers were left with the false impression that American beef could be infected by mad-cow disease.

The talk show host, her production company and vegetarian activist Howard Lyman are being sued for more than $10.3 million.

Mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, has not been reported in the United States. It is a brain-destroying disease that has ravaged cattle in Britain since the late 1980s, where it is believed to have been spread by cattle feed containing ground-up sheep parts.

The cattlemen contend Ms. Winfrey edited the show to eliminate pro-beef statements in favor of more alarming remarks by Lyman, a former rancher who said that feeding ground-up cattle parts to cattle in America -- a practice that now is banned -- could spread mad cow disease. Ms. Winfrey declared: "It's stopped me cold from eating another burger."

In the second case filed in Amarillo under the 14-line veggie libel law, a group of emu breeders claim that American Honda Motor Co. disparaged, slandered and defamed the bird industry during a commercial.

The commercial depicts a man taking his Honda from one unusual job interview to another. One of his stops is an emu farm where a caricaturish rancher tells the aspirant the large birds are the "pork of the future."

"The advertisement placed emu in a false light by depicting it as a scam and meat whose properties were those of pork. When, in fact, the emu is the antithesis of pork and its breeders ... are hard-working, honest Americans," states the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.

The plaintiffs say the commercial cost them in excess of $75,000 and that "the sole purpose of the commercial is an attempt by the Japanese to belittle and disparage American traditions and to associate the emu industry to that of a pyramid scheme."

"The commercial is tongue-in-cheek, lighthearted, as most of our commercials are," countered spokesman Art Garner of Torrance, Calif.-based American Honda Motor Co.

The free-speech implications of both cases could affect advertising, so Honda is following Ms. Winfrey's lawsuit closely, Garner said. No trial date has been set for the emu case.

Both supporters and opponents expect no constitutional determination of the veggie libel laws to be made soon, as the beef defamation lawsuit likely will wind its way through appeals courts.

"I think it will be awhile before this all settles down," Olson said.