American Meat Institute v. U.S. Dept. of Agr., 80-1639
| Decision Date | 07 April 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 80-1639,80-1639 |
| Parties | AMERICAN MEAT INSTITUTE, National Pork Producers Council, Bluebird, Incorporated, Dinner Bell Foods, Incorporated, George A. Hormel and Company, The Rath Packing Company, The Smithfield Packing Company, Incorporated, and Wilson Foods Corporation, Appellees, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, Defendant, and National Turkey Federation, Marval Poultry Company, Incorporated, and Shenandoah Food Processors Corporation, Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Philip C. Olsson, Washington, D. C. (Richard L. Frank, Richard H. Ekfelt, Olsson & Frank, P. C., Washington, D. C., John M. Hollis, Bruce A. Kayuha, Willcox, Savage, Lawrence, Dickson & Spindle, P. C., Norfolk, Va., on brief), for appellants.
J. Stanley Stroud, Chicago, Ill. (Richard L. Jacobson, James R. Henderson, Mayer, Brown & Platt, Chicago, Ill., on brief), for appellees.
Before MURNAGHAN and ERVIN, Circuit Judges, and MERHIGE *, district judge.
The National Turkey Federation and others appeal the district court's order enjoining the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture (the Secretary) from enforcing one of its product label regulations, D.C., 496 F.Supp. 64. We vacate that order.
In 1975, the Secretary approved labels indentifying a turkey product as "Turkey Ham," which was made with cured turkey thigh meat and which resembled pork ham in taste and appearance. The approval was made because the label was found not to violate 9 C.F.R. § 317.8(b)(13) which reads:
The word "ham," without any prefix indicating the species of animal from which derived, shall be used in labeling only in connection with the hind legs of swine.
This regulation was challenged in 1977 by the American Meat Institute (AMI) and the National Pork Producers Council, both of whom requested that use of the term "ham" be confined to food products made from the hind legs of swine. The Secretary responded by proposing a standard for the composition and labeling of "Turkey Ham." Prior to initiating a rule-making procedure, the Secretary commissioned an independent study to ascertain consumer understanding of the composition of "Turkey Ham." The survey disclosed that most consumers knew that it was a turkey product, but indicated that some consumers did not understand that turkey was the only meat in the product.
In June 1978, the Secretary proposed a rule that would have required the label "Turkey Ham" to be qualified by the phrase "Cured Turkey Thigh Meat" in the same color, type and background and in one-half size lettering. After a ninety day notice and comment period, the Secretary promulgated its final rule, see 9 C.F.R. § 381.171 (1979), allowing the use of the qualified "Turkey Ham" label. In support of the final rule, the Secretary said:
The name "Cured Turkey Thigh Meat" accurately describes the product now known as "Turkey Ham." However, the term "Turkey Ham" has been used as the name of the product since 1975 and better connotes the characteristics which have become associated with the product. As noted above, the term "Turkey Ham" has been misleading to some consumers because they thought it represented a product containing pork. This problem, of course, has been lessened somewhat as more persons have become acquainted with the name and the product. However, in order to assure that consumers are not misled, it has been determined that the product should be named "Turkey Ham" but also qualified by the term "Cured Turkey Thigh Meat" in order to clearly inform consumers that the product consists of turkey but not pork.
AMI sued the Secretary to overturn the rule and the National Turkey Federation and others intervened in support of the regulation. The district court found that the Secretary had acted arbitrarily and capriciously in promulgating the rule because he did not "gather any reliable evidence that the label 'Turkey Ham Cured Turkey Thigh Meat' would not mislead a substantial number of consumers into believing the product might contain at least some pork." Memorandum Opinion at 68. The district court found that
"ham" means the hind leg of swine, although there are many types of ham, such as smoked ham, corned ham, fresh ham, baked ham, sliced ham, country ham, Smithfield ham, and so on, but all of these refer to the hind leg of swine.
Finding that "(t)he materials and evidence before the Secretary...
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