litigation

From the demise of Prohibition until about a year ago, you could fairly safely assume your label was right, if it was approved by TTB. Most people assumed they had a “safe harbor,” created upon approval, even if some of the claims were dubious.

This has been changing, and fast. The causes are numerous. One big one is the Pom case, decided in mid-2014. Another is an onslaught of class action lawsuits (such as Tito’s, Makers Mark, Beam, Angel’s Envy, Templeton). I am not discussing these factors in detail in this post because we have covered them a lot in many other blog posts, readily findable. A third factor is the rise of whiskey. The whiskey rules are quite a bit more complicated than those for other leading categories such as vodka.

The details about this trend are set out in the April-May 2015 issue of Beverage Master – Craft Spirits & Brew Magazine. The article is entitled, Why Your Whiskey Label is Probably Wrong.

Some people don’t like hearing this message and think it sounds a tad alarmist. But for every one of those people, there are experts who understand this confluence of circumstances can take your company down (and perhaps some who are eager to do...

3/23/2015 Update. Caution. The above headline seems fairly skewed. See below for what we think really happened last week. The case is not halted at all.

Tito had another bad day yesterday, this time in federal court in San Diego. This further makes it obvious that the world of labeling has changed markedly since the Supreme Court’s Pom decision of June 12, 2014. On March 18, 2015, Judge Jeffrey Miller (of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California) ruled that the Tito’s vodka case, relating to deception and the term “handmade,” should move forward. Since the case was filed on September 19, 2014, Tito has argued that the case should be dismissed.

The judge did agree with Tito on a few points, but agreed with the complainants on the larger points. Tito had argued that the case should not move forward because there was no real damage to anyone. In response, the court’s Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Tito’s Motion to Dismiss, noted some consumers care a lot about “processes and places of origin” when deciding what to buy. By way of example, the court pointed to past controversies about kosher, halal, diamonds from conflict zones, and wine...

I have focused on beverage labeling law since 1988. During that time it has been very rare for a private party to bring any action against a beer, wine or spirit supplier’s labeling or advertising — unless the basis was trademark.

Instead, most people assumed the states, TTB, and FDA would take care of this, pretty much to the exclusion of anyone else. Pom began to unravel this in a big way over the past couple of years, and this trend seems to be gaining momentum.

A San Diego law firm filed a class action lawsuit, on December 8, 2014, in federal court in California. The case is called Nowrouzi et. al. v. Maker’s Mark Distillery, Inc. A few pages of the complaint are here. If you want a copy of the whole complaint, or updates, they are available upon request and without obligation.

The complaint goes right for Beam’s jugular (Jim Beam owns Maker’s Mark). It essentially says Maker’s Mark is lying about whether the product is “handmade.” The first count is for false advertising. The second is for unfair competition and fraud. Next is negligent misrepresentation and then intentional misrepresentation. The lawsuit asks for a jury trial, punitive damages, an injunction, reimbursement to consumers, interest, and lawyer’s fees.

An example of the...