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#5 United States v. 95 Barrels, More or Less, Alleged Apple Cider Vinegar, Douglas Packing Company, Claimant
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In this episode we re-argue the Supreme Court case United States v. 95 Barrels, More or Less, Alleged Apple Cider Vinegar, Douglas Packing Company, Claimant.
The Douglas Packing Company is selling a product that they have labeled as apple cider vinegar. However, the feds have an issue with the fact that sometimes the company presses fresh apples, and at other times they press dehydrated and rehydrated apples without informing consumers of the difference. Does this still count as “apple cider vinegar”? Neither the company, the feds, nor the lower courts can agree.
The question before the court: was the apple cider vinegar misbranded under the provisions of the Pure Food and Drug Act?
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Transcript
Introduction to Re-litigated podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Hi there, Jared here. Welcome to Re-litigated, the show where five friends who are absolutely not lawyers attempt to retry a real Supreme Court case. This is episode 5, United States v. 95 barrels, more or less, alleged apple cider vinegar, Douglas Packing Company claimant. Yes, that is the full title of the case.
00:00:22
Speaker
Two quick notes before we get started. First, as always, we try our best to represent the facts and decisions in the case as accurately as possible. But we're not lawyers, and nothing in this episode should be taken as legal advice. Second, if you enjoy the podcast, please support us by subscribing, rating, leaving us a comment, and telling your friends. We could really use the help in getting the word out.
Supporting the podcast
00:00:42
Speaker
If you like, you can also find us on YouTube and Instagram. Our handle is relitigatedpodcast. Thank you so much for your help. Okay, with that out of the way, let's start the show.
00:00:55
Speaker
Fearing for his life and his job Honestly fear nothing nothing scares me anymore
Podcast structure and roles
00:01:01
Speaker
at this point. I'm i'm just I'm just living my life and That's where we're at I Can't think of a better way to start the show. Hi there. Welcome to the related gated podcast. I'm your host Jared I'm joined by my co-host Nikki. Say hi Nikki. Hello We also have with us three friends who will be role-playing as our justices. We've got our first associate justice, Adam. What's up, Adam? I am the law. Next we have associate justice, Chris. What's up, Chris? Hi. And I just wanted to confer, um, ah our chief justice did mention cookies and I'm expecting them to be delivered. Oh yeah. I did hear the word cookies. That's true. Speaking of chief justice, what's up, Sarah?
00:01:49
Speaker
What's up? Sorry, guys. Cookies are gone. I have eaten them. No more treats. No treats. Unless we all agree on whatever this case is. It's got to be illegal. Eating all the cookies. This is unjust. It's not absolutely not just at the very least, but probably illegal. We are the law. Collectively. All right.
00:02:19
Speaker
If you're new to the show, here's how this works. Nikki and I have selected a real Supreme Court case and our justices do not know what case we have selected. Isn't that right? Supreme Court justices. That's, I mean, every day is a new adventure. Clueless. We are clueless.
00:02:38
Speaker
Nikki's gonna go ahead and introduce the case to us and walk us through the facts of the case so that we can all get familiar with the details. The justices are free to ask factual questions during this time and we'll we'll answer them as best as we can with the facts that we have.
00:02:51
Speaker
Next, we're gonna move into oral arguments where Nikki will role play as the petitioner and I will role play as the respondent. We each get seven minutes to make our case, during which the justices are free to interrupt us and ask us any probing questions that they like. When the arguments are over, the justices will deliberate and deliver their own opinions. The final rulings do not need to be unanimous, majority opinion will win. Even if two or more justices agree in principle, they can disagree as to why.
00:03:19
Speaker
Once we've had our fun and our mock hearing, Nikki and I will reveal what the Supreme Court actually decided and talk about how we feel about the actual results and why this case even matters. Sound good to everybody? Sounds amazing. Strap me in. All right, let's do it. Sounds good. Let me turn it over to Nikki for the facts of the case.
Introducing United States v. 95 barrels of alleged apple cider vinegar
00:03:39
Speaker
All right. Hello, everybody. As we sit here recording, it is the fall. So the leaves are changing. All of the coolest people are born around this time of year. And because apples are now in season, we now have treats like apple cider, which I am currently drinking, apple cider donuts, and the United States versus 95 barrels, more or less, alleged apple cider vinegar, Douglas Packing Company,
00:04:09
Speaker
claimant. That is our case for today. I'm so excited for this. well I've been waiting for a case like this. It's about time those barrels of apple cider vinegar face justice. Oh, let's get them. Yes, and I'm sitting here with my little bit of ah apple cider just enjoying the seasonality. It's great.
00:04:31
Speaker
I do have apple cider. I've got cider in the fridge and I didn't come prepared if only I'd known. Yeah. Tsk, tsk. Rough. What a shame.
Case details: Misbranding and adulteration
00:04:41
Speaker
That's fine. So ah in a warehouse in Ohio sits approximately 95 barrels of what is labeled apple cider vinegar, but is it really? The Douglas Packing Company believes that it is, but according to the United States government, no, it is not.
00:05:02
Speaker
The problem stems first from how the apple cider vinegar was made and then from how it was labeled. At issue are the following two statements. Douglas Packing Company excels your brand apple cider vinegar made from selected apples reduced to 4%um Rochester, New York and guaranteed to comply with all pure food laws, Douglas Packing Company, Rochester, New York. When the suit was first brought by the federal government, they alleged that under the Food and Drugs Act, the product was adulterated and misbranded.
00:05:45
Speaker
They argued that the apple cider vinegar was not made from real apple cider, and so was manufactured in an alternative manner. Specifically, they explained that apple cider is a specific substance according to statute made from pressing fresh apples. In contrast, the apple cider used to make the supposed apple cider vinegar was created by flowing water through dehydrated apples.
00:06:13
Speaker
As a part of the dehydration process, a small amount of s sulfur fumes are used to prevent rot, fermentation, and discoloration. During rehydration, barium carbonate is added to the resulting liquid to remove sulfur dioxide.
00:06:31
Speaker
After the liquid is generated, the exact same alcoholic and fermentation process is used with the same equipment to produce the vinegar in the final product as any other apple cider vinegar. In the view of the federal government, the liquid produced from dehydrated apples was not apple cider, and so the product was adulterated, meaning it was a lower quality product due to additives.
00:06:59
Speaker
Additionally, since the product was not, in the eyes of the government, real apple cider vinegar, then labeling the barrels as containing apple cider vinegar was a misbranding and in violation of the Food and Drugs Act. For their part, the Douglas Packing Company agreed with the facts as presented by the government.
00:07:19
Speaker
They acknowledged that the liquid used in their process was the result of pressing rehydrated apples instead of fresh apples, but objected to the accusation that the liquid should not be considered apple cider, and the resulting vinegar therefore couldn't be apple cider vinegar.
Douglas Packing Company’s defense
00:07:35
Speaker
Since apples are a seasonal fruit, with the season lasting only between September 25th and December 15th, it's not possible that apple cider vinegar always be made from first pressing fresh apples.
00:07:49
Speaker
Chemical analysis indicated that the liquids produced from both manufacturing processes were similar. The vinegar was also similar in taste and composition, except the vinegar from evaporated apples had traces of barium. The case
Initial ruling and appeal
00:08:05
Speaker
was heard without a jury based on the pleadings and an agreed statement of facts. Samples of the cider and the vinegar from both fresh and evaporated apples were provided to the judge.
00:08:16
Speaker
According to this judge, there were slight differences in appearance and taste, but all looked and tasted like cider or like vinegar. The court held that the charge of adulteration was not sustained, but the vinegar was misbranded. The company appealed and the judgment was reversed by the circuit court of appeals. And so we've ah we've escalated it again. And now the question before our esteemed justices is, was the vinegar misbranded?
Justices deliberate on apple cider vinegar
00:08:50
Speaker
Wow. Well, I mean, if it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, it might just still be apple cider vinegar. I don't know. Okay. Deep ah vinegar lore today on the podcast, ladies and gentlemen, deep vinegar. Uh, wait, I'm not going to use the word. Wow. Let's just send him. Yeah. Cannon. I'm going to go. I'm going to say cannon apple cider vinegar cannon. This is a pivotal case, ladies and gentlemen.
00:09:17
Speaker
I feel like this is the cornerstone of ah Oreos being made of like petroleum byproducts, like 100 years later. this This feels to me like a turn of the century case, and it feels like like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle was not interpreted as the as the warning that it was meant to be. But somehow Oreos are still vegan.
00:09:40
Speaker
so I just, knowing where we are today in our current history, I just, I feel like I know where this case is going to go. But anyway, I'm going to clamp it there. I'm ready for it. Okay. Well, I guess in true court fashion, you're both going to argue the different sides of this, huh? Who's defending this apple cider?
00:10:07
Speaker
Yeah, this is the part where Sarah breaks the pool cue over her knee and throws it in front of both of you guys, right? Yeah. So Nikki will be the petitioner, which is the United States government. They are appealing the previous decision that the ah lower courts had said that it's not adulterated and it's not misbranded. And I will be representing the Douglas Packing Company arguing that that is true, that it is not misbranded and it is not adulterated. Good luck.
00:10:45
Speaker
As a petitioner, Nikki will be going first. I have seven minutes queued up and your timer will start when you begin. Okay. Esteemed justices.
00:11:00
Speaker
This case is the simple enforcement of a law that Congress put into place under its powers to ensure honesty in advertising products that people are supposed to eat or otherwise put into their bodies.
00:11:18
Speaker
So the Food and Drugs Act defines food as all articles used for food, drink, confectionery, or condiment by man or other animals, whether simple, mixed, or compound. This clearly includes apple cider and apple cider vinegar. According to this act, a food is misbranded if its packaging or label has false or misleading information. This act also defines mislabeling.
00:11:48
Speaker
So mislaing mislabeling occurs if an imitation or different product is sold under the distinctive name of of another food, if a product is labeled or branded to deceive or mislead the purchaser, or if the product's packaging or label makes any statement about its ingredients that is false or misleading in any way.
00:12:15
Speaker
So in consideration of this instance, the Douglas Packing Company sells the products they have labeled as apple cider and apple cider vinegar made from selected apples. Apple cider vinegar is the fermentation of the juice of apples, and everyone agrees that the fermented product from fresh apples, indeed, gets to be called apple cider vinegar.
00:12:44
Speaker
Under the law, when a person or company creates and sells food, they need to be honest about the food in its labeling and packaging so that the consumer knows what they are buying and eating. So deception can occur not only through blatantly false information, but also through omission or incomplete information, through indirect language, or through ambiguity.
00:13:13
Speaker
The law is designed to prevent this such deception so straightforward, honest labeling will not deceive consumers and will comply with the law. This substance was made from dried and reconstituted apples. It's simply not the same as that made from fresh, non-dehydrated apples.
00:13:35
Speaker
So the water that is removed from apples during dehydration was part of the juice that would have made the cider and the vinegar. This juice was not replaced. Added water is not a constituent part of the apples. Therefore, what they then extract from the dried apples, so they fill up the the vat with the dried apples, they pour some water in, they smush it, it's different from the pressed juice of apples.
00:14:03
Speaker
If a product being sold is not identical to what the brand says it is, it is misbranded. So this product made from dried apples is not the product described in the label apple cider vinegar made from selected apples. The words apple cider vinegar suggests the product inside to be the vinegar made from apple cider, the juice of apples. However, the product in question, which is made by from you know dehydrating, then adding water, it's not the same thing.
00:14:32
Speaker
The labeling did not disclose this difference in any way. Instead, it suggests the products be made from fresh apples. The words made from selected apples connotes that the apples were sort of chosen with some sort of regard for using them to make cider vinegar, being picked for freshness, for suitability. There's no indication that the selection involves dried out apples or that the juice is substituted with water.
00:14:59
Speaker
Altogether, this is a misrepresentation of the product being sold. Therefore, the product that this company is selling has been misbranded and violates the Food and Drug Act.
00:15:10
Speaker
I will also point out they're adding chemicals. So they're adding barium, they're adding sulfur, and then barium, and there's leaving traces of that in the product. That's not a constituent part of apples, of apple juice that's squeezed out of fresh apples. They're just adding stuff and making it different. It's not it's it's not the same product. it is It is misbranded and adulterated. And I think at this point, I will take questions.
00:15:37
Speaker
so I don't know a whole lot about dehydrating and rehydrating fruit or the law for that matter. Um, but I just would like to ask. So there's no way to like rehydrate an apple and get juice from that. I guess not. It just be water with apple essence.
00:16:03
Speaker
ah Yeah, they're they're drying out apples and then they put you know a bunch of dried apples in the container. They pour water through, they press it, and then what comes out, that's what they're using, they're processing and and selling okay as apple cider vinegar. When you dry out a fruit, like you just you evaporate the water out, but like you know you're not sublimating out Apple essence right like the water all that like destroying Apple molecules and that's that's like when you make the Apple molecules are extremely delicate have to be handled with care otherwise what do you have on the other side honey okay so is the problem just that they're not calling it the right thing like what if they called it like I don't know fruit by the foot cider vinegar would that be kosher
00:16:50
Speaker
So the issue is that the the potential consumer and looking at the packaging is not being informed, that there's some apples you know that are made this way, french you know fresh apples versus, oh, we're drying it out and then we're pouring water and theyre and we're kind of you know adding some chemicals and making it that way. There's honestly no difference in the labeling.
00:17:10
Speaker
This is the exact kind of words I'm accustomed to as a modern consumer. Like the selected apples and yeah, we selected the really dry ones.
00:17:20
Speaker
They were super dry. It was like the desert. It sounds like the apple cider vinegar is a dupe and it probably tastes pretty shitty anyways compared to the fresh squeezed apples anyways. How does it taste? I would like to request a quick aside maybe for the next case where it involves food or food of sort that you send us Justices samples so that we can test. I see this is going.
00:17:49
Speaker
Uh, and determine, you know, just to help inform our decisions a little bit better. Send me that boot, like apple cider vinegar, please. Yeah. Um, okay. Thank you, Nikki. I have no further questions. Adam, Chris. I do want to know how it tasted. Was it good?
00:18:10
Speaker
I mean, apple cider vinegar is not great. <unk> I don't know. It's really good base for like salad dressings. I do use it in that way quite a bit. It's very good for you. unless it's made from fruit by the foot. Unless it has barium in it. Okay. That's true. Extremely radioactive. Yeah. We don't like that. That is a, that is time. If there's one more question, I'll allow it, but we are at time. No. Yeah. Really just more stray observation. So I think we could move on. yes i Yeah, same. Yep. Yeah. We're just pontificating at this point. So.
00:18:49
Speaker
As is your want.
00:18:53
Speaker
I'm going with the powder to wake up here, buddy. Nikki, if you can put seven minutes on the clock for me, I will rebut.
Douglas Packing argues chemical similarity
00:19:04
Speaker
Defend your botched cider. ah but I mean, I really feel. All right, it'll start when ah when you do. OK, here we go.
00:19:17
Speaker
Miss Chief Justice, and may it please the court, 95 barrels of our company's finest apple cider vinegar is currently sitting in a warehouse seized by the government, not because of what is inside of the barrels, but because of what is written on them. Frankly, this is absurd. This whole thing is absurd. Here's what's actually written on the barrels. quote Douglas Packing Company, Excelsior brand apple cider vinegar made from selected apples reduced to 4% of Rochester, New York. Allow us to go through this part by part. First, we have Douglas Packing Company. That's us. We're the Douglas Packing Company. Noma's branding there. Check's out. Second, Excelsior brand. Yep. That's the name of our brand. No lies told there.
00:20:06
Speaker
Third, apple cider vinegar. This seems to be the sticking point. Did we use apple cider to make our vinegar? We've been through this in the lower courts already, but allow me to reiterate, our vinegar made from evaporated apples looks the same, tastes the same, smells the same as vinegar from regular apples. Chemically, it's almost identical. It reacts the same and can be used the same way for the same exact things. What more does something need to do to be apple cider vinegar?
00:20:37
Speaker
Is apple juice made from concentrate not still apple juice? Of course it is. Slightly different process, sure, but the result is the same to the taste buds of children across the country. That's a good one. So what do we have left? Selected apples is a true statement. We don't accept just anyone's apples. We use our own and only the ones that we select. That just leaves Rochester, New York, which is kind of just where we're located. So no foul play there. Wait.
00:21:06
Speaker
Four percentum. That's the chemical makeup of the vinegar, which is part of the apple cider vinegar. Dubious. Okay. I'm having a hard time finding the misbranding justices. We're producing apple cider vinegar that's the same result as any other apple cider vinegar, so what's the big deal? I'll tell you what the big deal is.
00:21:30
Speaker
a federal government that's injecting its writhing tentacles into every facet of the lives of the American people and their businesses. That's the real problem here. oh god The government seeks to play the role of noble servants looking out for the average Joe, but their overreach is really starting to show here. It's one thing to make sure that our medicines are real and that our fuud just food is pure.
00:21:54
Speaker
That's all well and good. But we should be wary of civil servants who are so fervent in their policing that they would make a literal federal case over a quibble of language. Language, it should be pointed out, sure seems accurate to us.
00:22:09
Speaker
What's next? How far is the federal government to be allowed to creep into our lives? This is an opportunity for the court to stop it here and now. If we don't, we're telling the bureaucrats that we're okay with them rifling through our cabinets, telling us what we can and cannot put into our bodies. What is and is not real according to their tables and their schedules. Arrest this nightmare here.
00:22:36
Speaker
Call a barrel of vinegar a barrel of vinegar. Thank you. I yield any of my remaining time to questions. Really pounded the table, huh? Wait, you can arrest a nightmare. Now, admittedly, I'm not real school in the law, but that's compelling. You've seen you've seen Ghostbusters. That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah um yeah. Yeah, that was a very impassioned libertarian screed toward the end there. And ah don't get me wrong, it was compelling.
00:23:06
Speaker
But, uh, I have a question. What would be an example of a mislabeling in your opinion? Like what, what words would have to change and and in what way for that to, to not be okay, to not have the steel approval to leave the warehouse. If we didn't put apple cider vinegar in the barrels. Yeah. When you put it that way. All right. All right. Can I taste it? Vinegar has barium in it.
00:23:35
Speaker
i I feel, do you do you not feel like you should disclose to your faithful and loving consumers the exact ingredients that are in your product? I don't know. I feel like if I was consuming apple cider vinegar that had barium in it, I would maybe like to know. A quick Google search tells me that barium is typically used in oil drilling and X-rays. Oh, good to know. Which may or may not have been invented at the time of this case. yeah plenty of Plenty of chemicals that sound nasty and terrible are just a standard part of the organic chemistry of what we consume and eat all day. I mean,
00:24:26
Speaker
you know You can drink water or you can drink dihydrogen monoxide. Everything's a chemical. Don't use your big words with me. the But my point being that the result is chemically the same. like We don't have a word for apple cider vinegar made in this particular way. like we We make it one of two ways depending on whether or not The apples are in season. When they're in season, we make them fresh from fresh. But when they're not in season, then what do you go without your apple cider vinegar? No, we found a way to make apple cider vinegar from dehydrated apples. Seems like they have two tiers of products here. Right. They're two distinct products sold under the same label. They are the same product at the end made by two different processes. Hmm.
00:25:19
Speaker
It would be like, you know, you can you can make a cookie one way, yes please and you can go into a store and buy a cookie made in another place. Are we to start to ah we just start kicking down the doors of kitchens everywhere and measuring exactly how much butter and sugar goes into it? No, they they all have their own slightly different bespoke recipes, but anybody who looks at it says, like yeah, that's a cookie. And that, that looks like apple cider vinegar to me. So what's the problem?
00:25:48
Speaker
Hmm. I still think we would need a taste test to determine, but I don't think that's going to happen here today. Okay. If I haven't made vinegar from wine and then I also made a batch of vinegar from a slurry of rehydrated raisins. Could I mark those under the same label? Does your slurry of ah reh of from rehydrated raisins contain chemically the same stuff that's in wine. Some respect
Humorous deliberations on labeling
00:26:23
Speaker
on my raisin slurry. I mean, mostly, right? Does it Grapes a raisin and raisin a grape, right? Like it's all the same. What do you call a dried apple? Does that have a name? Well, wine and the liquid that just gets pressed out of a grape or a raisin or not.
00:26:42
Speaker
wine goes through an additional process. So if you turned your slurry, if you fermented it and turned it into wine and then used that wine, then I say no harm, no foul. Also, I believe my time is up. Well, I'm just way more confused. Yeah, you're done, buddy. I have no clarifying questions, but I do have an opinion.
00:27:07
Speaker
Yeah, let's get all right. Let's get i'm intrigued get right into deliberation. And with that, let's hear it for the next part. I am i am totally waiting ready for you to agree with me. Let's do it.
00:27:23
Speaker
Confident. I i it so I mean, I just I think there's no mislabeling, but I think the label is missing things.
00:27:34
Speaker
If that's the only thing on the label, then it is not accurate. Like it's, it's, it's it's not, it's not the complete truth. You know what, Chris, I think I might be on a similar wavelength. I feel like, yeah, sure. Okay. It's apple cider vinegar.
00:27:52
Speaker
maybe Maybe a less good version of apple cider vinegar. Again, we can't taste it. We don't know. But I don't know. I feel like we should be disclosing the ingredients, disclosing that the main ingredient in this particular batch, all 95 barrels more or less, are dehydrated apples, not just apples.
00:28:18
Speaker
Let the consumer decide if they would rather take the dehydrated apple, apple cider vinegar, or the fresh apple, apple cider vinegar. Yeah. States rights. Yeah. Well, i am hundred percent of states right but I mean, kind of.
00:28:44
Speaker
Um, yeah, I just, I think that we're missing, um, like the whole truth on the label and it's not necessarily mislabeled. Um, but it is missing information. Um, according to the law at this time, I have no freaking clue, but according to common sense, yeah, it's missing information.
00:29:06
Speaker
Well, I'm curious, I don't know if anybody knows the answer to this question, but like, can you consider like if you're omitting ingredients or in omitting information on the label, is that not?
00:29:20
Speaker
mislabeling something. It's like the the difference between like lying and omitting information. like me I don't know. You're not lying, but it doesn't really look good either way. i so That logic, you can't call an Oreo an Oreo. You have to call it like a vaguely chocolate flavored wafer full of palm oil. Microplastics, yeah.
00:29:44
Speaker
and pome oil so Do we need to determine what actually constitutes something as being mislabeled again? Hold on. I'm asking the internet what you call a dried apple and the consensus is that you call it dried apples.
00:30:04
Speaker
so Which I just think is fair, right? Like grapes become raisins, plums become prunes. Uh, I've run out of examples, but what about dates? That's it. I think dates are just dates. Actually, I'm not sure you can eat a date, not dried. Oh boy. Now I'm way more confused than when I started. Anyway, this is going to be a really good YouTube rabbit hole. Just a label thing. Like, do we just want to call it like fruit by the foot vinegar and we're good.
00:30:34
Speaker
That's probably copy-written. That's a trade for sure. Go ahead, Chris. Well, I was going to say processed versus fresh versus organic, whatever that means. um these These weird descriptors that we have in modern food ah are are kind of useless. um The only thing that's really useful is the list of ingredients. um Dehydrated apples are different from apples, therefore,
00:30:59
Speaker
You know, that's an ingredient that needs to be made aware, but there's no ingredients list in the label. um So it seems silly, which makes me think that this case was from like 1890. 17 dickety four. I'm having flashbacks. Yes. OK, so I think we just need to determine if omitting the list of ingredients And all the chemicals and all that stuff it is that actually mislabeling so i don't know i kinda feel like it could be miss. Mislabeled like it's not it's not like they were marketing the original like fresh apple cider vinegar right it's.
00:31:43
Speaker
I'm really torn on this one. This might be the case that actually maybe causes the domino effect of why we have organic and non-organic. Those very useless labels.
00:32:00
Speaker
Yeah, this feels historic. I'm going to radically pivot here. ah How did the cops first obtain the evidence to find the 95 barrels of apple cider vinegar? Was this whole thing a search and seizure? You want to know who snitched? I knew, I knew that was going to come up as a question and I, we don't know. Um, it's just, you know, it's just like, Hey, you've got a bunch of barrels of stuff and you know, we think that it's wrong. Right. Like, like some particularly sophisticated cop, like sniffed it. He's like, I say this smells like it was made from dried apples. That's how he talks.
00:32:38
Speaker
it feels like It feels like the number one competitor of the Douglas Packing Company like had had an op in there and saw that they were using dehydrated apples and they like filed a lawsuit to be like, yeah, my competitor's cheating. Use dehydrated apples. It's not real. I feel like the apple cider vinegar is real with dehydrated apples.
00:33:02
Speaker
but i But I feel like it's just like a a less quality version. It's like, I don't know. and don't want to I don't want to use company names here. You can edit this out, but it's like the great value Walmart brand of Apple cider vinegar. Okay, so I was curious about this now as well. It's great advertising. You can buy a jug of powdered apple to make reconstituted cider, like in your fallout shelter, presumably.
00:33:32
Speaker
ah So we've gone all the way the other way and we're giving all the power to the people like yeah You just want to make your own crappy apple cider here. Here's a bunch of powder also yeah are don regulated this you can also buy out out Apple cider vinegar so you can buy your apple powder You can buy your cider powder you can buy your vinegar powder and you can titrate them to your precise specification We've gotten way off track here. Oh, no Oh no, are we gonna have to agree with Jared? I have tried the powdered apple cider drink in the past. Hold on. Hold on, Nikki. Sarah was saying something. Oh, come on. I'm just rubbing the bridge of my nose like, oh, are we gonna have to agree with Jared? I hate this part.
00:34:20
Speaker
but Every fiber of my being says no. Maybe I should listen to those fibers.
00:34:29
Speaker
Yeah, whichever side you're representing is the heel side. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Nobody says you have to listen to any fibers. What fibers said anything? Fun fact, there's no fiber in this apple cider vinegar. Perfect. Oh, yeah, we wouldn't need to put that on the label. So that's great. All the mass gets fed to horses.
00:34:54
Speaker
Presumably. Ponies. Yeah. Okay. Okay. We got to get back. We got to get back on track here. Let's refocus here. Illegal search and seizure. We throw the whole thing out, right? Easy peasy. I love that move. No. Won't save you this time. All right. All right. Let's set some precedent, I guess. um
00:35:18
Speaker
So how do we apply porkynolose to this? No, we can't. there's There's no one to go to. First of all, we're going to imprison someone over this one. Like, they can dodge Apple cider as a commercial crime, maybe a civil thing, but prison? ah And also- 95 barrels. That's why I want to know about the nature of the search and seizure so we can decide if we're going to throw the police in jail. That's the whole foundation of the no-k-por-los-dos-por-que-no-los-dos doctrine. Yeah. um Can we even use the 95 barrels as evidence?
00:35:50
Speaker
There's only 93 of them. Two of them were drank inexplicably. um so Okay, back on track. We're all kind of coalescing around this idea that like the only real, this is a technical crime, this is a technicality, and the technicality is that they just didn't label the dang barrel right, and we just gotta come up with a name for dried apples and we're done here. It's just Schrodinger's label, for sure. How so? Is it mislabeled or is it not labeled?
00:36:20
Speaker
Listen, okay. I'm just coming to a conclusion at this point. I think that in order to fix this mess, Jarrett and the rest of the Douglas packing company need to take a little bit of extra time and a little bit of extra money and slap some freaking labels on those 95 barrels, right?
Ruling: Misbranding confirmed
00:36:39
Speaker
Maybe hire a marketing company. I don't think it's testing. Yeah. What do we call this stuff? You don't even have to outsource. We're going to call it fine. Ring vinegar, apple ring vinegar.
00:36:50
Speaker
We're done here. but Respectfully, Chief Justice, as your lowly clerk, I just must ask, what what is the product called that is chemically equivalent to apple cider vinegar? Imitation to apple cider vinegar. Not quite as fresh apple cider vinegar. Processed.
00:37:16
Speaker
as as your lowly clerk who's been paid off by the Douglas Packing company. i'm like hey hey hey can you The question for the count before the court is, is this stuff misbranded or not?
00:37:30
Speaker
yeah Hold on. um'm real Guys, this is a good one again, really torn on this one. Okay, let's just read the definition of misbranded once again, right? Articles of food or articles which enter into the composition of food, the package or label of which shall bear any statement, design or device regarding such article or the ingredients or substances contained therein, which shall be false or misleading in any particular. So again, it's like is omitting the information
00:38:08
Speaker
Misleading? Right. I think so. I think it is. I would also direct your attention to the second slide. Wait, I'm on the second slide. Does every product the need to like list all of its constituent ingredients right on in the front of the package? I mean, it could be on the back of the package. Fair. So are we we really missing just a little asterisk on these barrels that says contains bromide or barium? What is it, barium?
00:38:36
Speaker
Barium and something else. Sulfides. What was the other thing? there um So it was OK, so first they used pure natural lead. As she pulls it up, my understanding is they added. So they first had sulfur fumes to prevent rot. And then later to get the rot to get the sulfur out, they they did the barium. So preservatives. I mean,
00:39:07
Speaker
Yes. So as part of this, we need to they need to disclose the preservatives. I really think actually porque no los dos might come in handy here. I think so too. I was just thinking that when you said that. I think it's both. I do. i i said it enough that we have If you've not listened to previous episodes, the Sarah court has created a doctrine of porque no los dos where if the police illegally search and seize your property to use against you in a court,
00:39:35
Speaker
then you go free and the court gets to punish the police. Uh, I am now very interested to understand. how does go ahead know my barrels with vinegar I think we need to expand the pork kidno so to absolute this very specific use case. I think I finally found an activist judge. He's determined to put these barrels of cider in jail.
00:40:02
Speaker
He'll find any way to do it. Lock them up. Lock them up. Yes. oh no i do I do think that, you know, all kidding aside, um the barrels are not technically mislabeled, but they are missing information. so We're not in the business of creating laws. Um, so I don't know if a law exists or not that, uh, you know, uh, forces the, uh, and enforces or has the FDA in enforce, um, but this is the law. This, this is the law you're talking. This is the law. Your job is to interpret it. We are the law. yeah you but not hear me Not forget.
00:40:46
Speaker
yeah Yes, but like we're not in the business of creating laws, right? We're just active as right reading the law that a that exists and then deciding how or whether it applies in this case or not. So I'm i'm thinking this whole avenue of like it's missing information on the label is it is somewhat of a dangerous slippery slope because then like.
00:41:08
Speaker
You know, you have to, don't you then have to then describe every product with a very like plain description of exactly what it is? Like that's how, that's like cone head language, like from the movie cone heads, like Eggo waffles become like, like wafer nutrient discs made from wheat. That's like, what's the limit to the, you know, what's the limit to, to what a complete labeling is? Is it just.
00:41:36
Speaker
having an ingredients list, maybe that's the solve. Maybe we just need an ingredient list and you have to be explicit about the nature of the fruit and its hydration or lack thereof. I think we definitely do. Did we just invent nutrition labels, guys? I think we might have gotten there. We'll have to see. Great work, everybody. Great work. Now comes the question of whose side are we on, right? Clearly not sharing.
00:42:04
Speaker
Yeah. I'm pretty sure we're going with the labels need to change. Yeah. And so therefore they are mislabeled. I would say that they are. Yeah, I would agree. I would say that they're misbranded. And this punishment, you're going to have to drink all 95 barrels of cider mister.
00:42:21
Speaker
ah Think about what you've done. Good luck with that. Oh man, I'm drinking 95 barrels of, ah of alleged apple cider vinegar. but especially when it's full of variance, 170% of your daily barium intake. You're going to be, you're going to be walking around like glow in the dark. I presume barium sounds right. Also not scientists. five No, technically I do have a master's in science. Um, uh, but not in chemistry though. Um, I, so, um, man, I don't know.
00:42:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm on there. I think mislabeled because they are missing information that that qualifies as being mislabeled. Yeah, I think that's from that's where I'm settling. Yeah, I agree. I think my final verdict here is that these are mislabeled because there is key information omitted from i mean there's no Actually, to be fair, there's no information about what is in this apple cider vinegar, besides the fact that it's apple cider vinegar. You could have put asbestos in there, for all we know, and just lied. So yeah, I think that this is Miss Brandon, and I think the Douglas Packing Company ah should hire a guy to put some ingredient labels on all 95 barrels of this zo dubious product. Yeah, maybe like like illustrate like a nice little label like with a mascot or something.
00:43:50
Speaker
You know, while we're in there and then, and then you they should drink all 95 barrels and think about what they've done. Yeah. I'm going to have a tummy ache for sure when this is over. Um, but so we still have not answered this really important, uh, dare I say pivotal foundational legal question of what do we add to the label to differentiate this from what we're going to presumably refer to as quote unquote.
00:44:16
Speaker
normal apple cider vinegar? Is that job? I was going to say, is that our job? I was just saying, you know what? It might just be me. I might just be singularly fascinated by this question and lack of resolution. All right. I'll work on this in my own time. Yeah, Adam, I charge you with a side project. Come to us next episode with your full fleshed out example of ingredients list. May I maybe present it in diorama form?
00:44:44
Speaker
I'll allow it in my court. Thank you, Chief Justice. for a d only You are as wise as you are merciful. I do my best. Okay, Nikki, Jarrett, I think our conclusions here are clear. Indeed. That's a unanimous decision for the government. Yeah, and just to be safe, just to be safe, we're going to throw all the cops who raided the warehouse in jail.
00:45:13
Speaker
And like we just decided at the beginning of this recording. In case. Because this has been a unanimous decision, everybody gets cookies. Yeah. yeah Hell yeah. Oh, man. Sometimes it pays to be an animal. Library works. I don't know. It could have gone with apple cider donuts. Ooh. Yeah. There are two on the counter right now. Adulterated apple cider donuts. I want the sketchy stuff.
00:45:42
Speaker
um I feel like I need to turn this over to Nikki because rabbit hole does not begin to describe the places and the depths to which Nikki has gone in the past 48 hours thinking about all the facets of of apple cider, apple cider vinegar. We got apple cider donuts yeah a couple of days ago just because like, because for research purposes, yeah yeah as you do,
00:46:11
Speaker
yeah i i've just been to I'm just going to turn it over the rest of this episode as Nikki gets to just go off. no no Well, okay. um yeah so All right, unanimous decision. I honestly thought that you guys were going to go with ah Jarrett's argument because he was just so passionate about government. It was very good. yeah i I did too, but then I sort of realized that I think everyone has decided that whatever I argue for is wrong.
00:46:44
Speaker
You know, it's been wrong. I think we gave you a fair shot. I think that's a little unfair, but all right. Sometimes they ruled in your favor, sir. You may have been typecast as a villain by all of us, personally. Yeah. But I'm sorry, please continue.
00:47:00
Speaker
Okay,
Alignment with actual Supreme Court ruling
00:47:02
Speaker
all right. So in the real case of US versus 95 barrels um of apple cider vinegar alleged, ah the Supreme Court reversed the Circuit Court of Appeals and found that the product had been misbranded.
00:47:19
Speaker
ah nice So, uh, and it was the, it was, yeah, it was unanimous, uh, decision. Oh, wow. there were no dissent i not not that Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Nope. I was not thinking that we would actually be and we wow. Okay. You should change careers.
00:47:36
Speaker
feeling it
00:47:39
Speaker
Yeah, so basically, yeah, they were like, you know, the vinegar that's made from dried apples, it's it's not the same thing. um The dehydration removed about 80% of the water content. um And so according to them, that was in excess of two thirds of the total of the constituent elements of the apple. So basically, they had an issue with the the juice being removed. um And, you know, normally that juice would have been made if the apples had been used in their natural state, but instead they took that out and then ah put a different thing in it, which was water. um So they decided that the substance extracted from the dried apples is different from the pressed out juice of apples. That's actually a really interesting and smart argument, I think, right? Like if you evaporated more than two thirds of it out into the air, like it's not the same thing anymore. That's compelling.
00:48:30
Speaker
The law is so silly. So they, go ahead, go ahead. Well, I was going to say like it, I mean, it's still, it's just less of it. It's the same thing. It's just, there's just less. So if I can somehow manage to lose two thirds of my body weight by hook or crook, you're still Adam. No, I think I get to legally change my name. I think that's what this says.
00:48:54
Speaker
I mean, I think you can always legally change your name. You just have to go through the process. Yeah. If you lost two thirds of yourself, you you would not be apple cider vinegar. No, absolutely not. That's very true. That's true. And if you sell me as such, that would be wrong.
00:49:12
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So basically they're like, it's not the identical thing that the brand indicates it to be. So it's misbranded. Um, and they, they didn't have an issue with the method of production. It was just it, you know, and, or, you know, quality, whether one is inferior to another, it was just that like, you know, basically it's not telling people that they're using, um, dried apples basically.
00:49:39
Speaker
So the whole argument seems to be because the lower courts had said it's not adulterated, meaning it's not an inferior product. It's not diluted. That's not the problem or poisonous toxic or poisonous. Yeah. Yeah. The problem is that if you ask an average person on the street, Hey, I have this product called you know apple cider vinegar. How do you think that's made or whatever? They would have an idea in their head of what that process is and what it's made from and what the Douglas Packing Company was putting forth was not that thing. It wasn't what people had in their minds. And so while they argued that like, yeah, okay, you figured out a way to make the same thing in a different way, basically the same thing in a different way, it's still not an accurate labeling. So they so they were like, okay, the product is is the same, but the name of it is wrong.
00:50:35
Speaker
And I think arrest that that's what I find most interesting about this. It was literally just the argument over like, can we, you know, arose by any other name or whatever, like, yeah you know, so. But I did because, okay, also, I don't think we ever revealed when this case was decided. Oh yeah. Need that. Yeah. So this case was decided in 1924. That all makes sense. Feels right. Yep.
00:51:02
Speaker
So yeah, so there's a whole lot of like social, I guess, context involved. um So this Food and Drug Act that you guys were interpreting was the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, ah the passing of which, and also the Federal Meat Inspection Act was fueled in part by Upton Sinclair's book, The Jungle.
Historical background of Pure Food and Drug Act
00:51:24
Speaker
So when I was calling it out, I was like, oh, he is too smart for his own good. um Yeah. yeah yeah know Maybe you should be a lawyer. That book really, really affected me in high school. It affected everybody when it came out. It was it was pretty you know heinous, ah the the conditions that it was describing. It actually made me a vegetarian for a couple years.
00:51:46
Speaker
don't blame you. do it so So this act was intended to address like food and also poisonous chemicals being used in food coloring like lead and arsenic and mercury and and yeah and food was colored to disguise poor quality. It was also supposed to prevent worthless or toxic like medicines that, you know, being sold is, you know, as a purported cure for a disease. So I think there were some reports of like water being sold as a cure for cancer. um It also concerns adulteration. So, oh yeah, right? Yeah. yeah
00:52:25
Speaker
but So the the act was also, it concerned adulteration, so mixing inferior, fake, or harmful material with the real product, as well as misbranding, so using false or misleading labeling. um And then there's also this concern of economic adulteration, so basically swindling people out of their money that they're paying for this.
00:52:46
Speaker
So for this point, trade guilds were historically setting up standards as a matter of commerce. So if you're, if you're a baking company, you're not going to make the big bucks by poisoning all of your customers. So regulation, the cornerstone of a healthy market economy.
00:53:03
Speaker
Yeah, so that was sort of the the the history of it, but you know it wasn't enough. so that you know So this case that really sort of helped solidify the federal government's interest in and right to regulate foods and drugs, even though laws have actually been in place about food quality and stuff in the US since before the US existed actually, like tracing back to the 1600s.
00:53:30
Speaker
That's nice. Yeah. ah So this case came up. There was also another case, US versus Lexington, Lexington Mill and Elevator Company. That was in 1914. That was a landmark case because the company was like making flour, but they were using this treatment to whiten the flour, but also introduce poisonous substances into it. Jesus. Yummy. Food was like a mess. It was a mess.
00:53:57
Speaker
so um In that case, the court ruled that flour, the product is not adulterated until the government could prove that the added substances were in an amount that would be harmful. So it's not enough that there's like lead in it. if The issue is like how much. i don't know I don't remember the chemical that they were using in that case, but it was bad.
00:54:18
Speaker
And then there's also drama about what constitutes misbranding. And for a while up to leading up to this case here with the apples, a company was in the clear if they just made like created a name for a low quality product. So yeah, well, I was gonna joke earlier, we'll just call like, app, Apple, the oil, and we'll just give it a little bird mascot and call it a day. So that's what companies were doing before, ah before this case. Yeah.
00:54:47
Speaker
maybe it should be a worm mascot i like that better actually yeah but
00:54:53
Speaker
so Yeah, even today there there's a there's actually a limit on the amount of cyanide that you could have in food It's like point zero zero zero zero. Yeah, there's like a it's like a really strange Yeah, it's just enough I don't know. I don't know if you guys Nick I mean Nikki you might be familiar about Maybe this but it on should the be internet a few months ago everybody a worm mascot. was all up in arms because there I like that better actually. were reports coming out that there were a
00:55:20
Speaker
ah traces of lead and arsenic in tampons and other feminine products. o And people were freaking out and they were like, oh my God, we're all going to die. The universe hates women. And then it was like, well, but you know, the government said we can have a little bit of lead and arsenic in our tampons. Oh, just a little bit of lead. There's like regulations and studies about, okay, it's like this much that causes Consequences like it probably won't kill you. Yeah, like it's still there. So yeah, good to know about the cyanide too. And then with your with your issue with the barium, Sarah, that actually wasn't harmful ah with the apple. So it just it was it was traces in there, but it just traces. It just sounds scary. Yeah, it I'm not a chemist. I don't know things. I'm not a chemist. I'm not a lawyer. Big words scare me, you know.
00:56:13
Speaker
So yeah. What is it you say you do here exactly? It's so new. Interestingly enough, I did also look up just how apple juice and cider and all of that is made. Watch some interesting YouTube videos. So preservation is a thing. It's very important, especially since apples are seasonal. And there was an article I pulled up from 2021 that basically says like it's actually common practice to use concentrates in the place of fresh apples. Oh, yeah.
00:56:42
Speaker
The way they make orange juice is crazy. can they do like orange juice The way that they make orange juice and in a modern context, it's almost basically flavorless because of the way they have to preserve the oranges for transit and processing. But they probably put on the label that there's preservative or whatever. they Every orange juice brand has what they call a flavor pack that's distinct and unique to their brand and it like gives Tropicana, for instance, like the Tropicana flavor.
00:57:10
Speaker
And that's how they're able to maintain flavor consistency across millions and millions and millions of gallons of orange juice. This just makes me want to like yeah shop local. I mean, yeah, go ahead and and do that. I did from the local store. you know I have my apple cider. It's delicious. On the package, it says that there's ah it's not just apples, but also potassium something, which is basically a preservative. But it says that on the package. I can look at it. um drinking it also it's pasteurized so which you imagine like what mcdonald's has to do to apples to keep them fresh when they've been cut and packaged for you know x number of days scared scared yeah it's like how their hamburgers like don't yeah deteriorate over time yeah they're just like indestructible forces of nature yeah that's what you want to build your body out of right like
00:58:05
Speaker
You want to build your body. The sketchy Douglas packing company, um, apple cider vinegar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You want apple ring or sats vinegar and indestructible cheeseburgers. And that's the foundation of the food pyramid with extra barium please. Extra barium for the kids. Oh yeah. Do it for the kids. so Strong bones. They love it. They love strong.
00:58:32
Speaker
Wow. Wow. Good job, Court. Once again, you've tricked us into learning something. How dare we? It's an educational podcast. I mean, I feel like I learned a lot.
00:58:47
Speaker
It turns out this case is like a really, you know, when you talk about the history of food regulation in the US, s like this is one of those cases. I mean, things have since moved on, the law has moved on. um After this point, the ah FDA was created. um And there were complaints about so this case was like, oh, we're going to be regulating food or whatever. But there were still complaints about this finding. So ah because it wasn't perfect. No, I think this case by it's like the so what is maybe not so much this case by itself, but the collection of cases where the Supreme Court asserted that yes, the federal government does have through laws passed by Congress, the ability to do this sort of regulation that companies don't get to just do what they want. you know and And that's, I think that's significant because with any major piece of legislation,
00:59:45
Speaker
everyone then has to figure out what the box is that surrounds it and what's in the box and what's outside the box. And for this one, this is this is a part of a repertoire of cases where the Supreme Court said, yeah, it might sound kind of fiddly, but the law is pretty clear and we're looking at it and we don't think you were being fully honest here and transparent. And that's what the law requires. And so we've we've argued, we've ruled before that yes, the federal government does have the ability to hold you accountable for being honest in this particular domain, probably having to do with Congress's ability to, or the federal government's ability to ah regulate the cross border trade and you know the commerce clause and all that kind of stuff. So.
01:00:38
Speaker
yeah Sounds like ah honesty is the best policy. Yeah. So because of the Sarah court, people can know what it is that's in their food that they're consuming. My gift to all of you. There was a, I want to say it was Adam earlier, who talked about sort of like,
01:01:03
Speaker
how far does this go? And that was sort of my initial reaction. That's my favorite question in general. Yeah. Like, like at what point does a company have to print like the methodology by which like does do the cookies I buy at the store come with the recipe? I was going to make a joke about needing to list the hydration of all the ingredients, but I just couldn't figure out a way to make it funny. But here we are. Um,
01:01:30
Speaker
I think where we are now is fine. you know We get to know what's in our food, um but there's probably opportunities for improvement for a fully informed public about what we're putting in our bodies or what we're using to synthesize other things or whatever. ah but Yeah, federal government has the authority and the the right to take a look at what you're making how you're making it and Determine whether or not what you call it is what it is Yeah justice You don't mess around with food or or medications or
01:02:13
Speaker
Yeah. Anything you put in your body.
Humorous reflection on labeling history
01:02:15
Speaker
Yeah. So, but this case being in the 1920s, this is like, when they say a barrel, right? We're, we're probably talking about like a full on like oak barrel with like the label is probably like a stamp, right? Like that's what I picture in my head. Yeah. Same. Yeah. i was I was picturing like huge, like wooden barrels. It's going to take them a long time to drink all that cider vinegar. They're going to be so nauseous. It's good for your heart though.
01:02:43
Speaker
Yeah, I'm just imagining kegs. Just everywhere. Don't you come up from the basement till you've finished every drop, mister. Also, you're really not supposed to be drinking apple cider vinegar like that. Well, that's maybe you should have thought of that before you broke the law. I guess that's going to suck for me and what I've told I now have to do. Maybe you shouldn't have lied. This hurts the court way more than it hurts you, presumably.
01:03:11
Speaker
Enjoy your barium. All right. Well, this was a a bit of a quicker one, but it well, I thought it was going to be and then the deliberations. Which were so entertaining. I loved it. Hey, at least we stayed on task. Yeah, I do appreciate that. battle there You can find a gut.
01:03:32
Speaker
Yeah, um this is great. I appreciate it as always. Thank you, Nikki. Thank you justices. We have our ruling and I can't wait to can't wait to get into it again next week. Indeed. Happy to help. What other barrels of things might come across our desks in the next episodes? We shall see. That depends on how nosy the police get. Yeah. True.
01:04:01
Speaker
We're itching. Barrels of things. i'm umm I don't know that, I don't think we have barrels of things coming. Well, not next week. Other vessels of things we'll do too. Bags. We'll take it under advisor. Cuffins full of Transylvanian soil. Tattoo. I'll take it. ah Envelopes full of illegal lottery tickets. right CIA versus Dracula. Oh Cool, all right, I think, I think that's- You should cut us off. Yes, I think that's the the level of unhingedness that I need to say. I think we're good. Indeed. ah But thanks, everybody. We'll catch you at the next one. Toodles. See ya.
01:04:48
Speaker
And there you have it, the unanimous decision in favor of the United States from our justices. This ruling aligns exactly with the real Supreme Court, which also ruled 9-0 in favor of the United States.
01:05:00
Speaker
That's it for this episode, but before we go, thanks again to my co-host and to our Justices. The music in this episode was written by Studio Columna and Toby Smith and provided by Pixabay. Audio mixing and producing was done by me. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe, rate, and comment so other people can find us. You can also catch us on YouTube and Instagram at Relitigated Podcast. We really do need help in spreading the word and would really appreciate any assistance you'd care to give us.
01:05:28
Speaker
All right, until next time, I'm Jarrett, and this has been Reliticated. Take care.