TEXAS — A U.S. District Court judge has stuck down a Texas law requiring plant-based meat products to be labeled with large disclaimers on the packaging.
The lawsuit, filed by Turtle Island Foods Inc., was in response to the state amending the Texas Health and Safety Code with Senate Bill 664, requiring provisions for plant-based meat products. According to the bill, the companies must label the products within these parameters.
Immediately before or after the name of the product.
In the line of the label immediately before or after the line containing the name of the product.
Within the same phrase or sentence containing the name of the product.
The judge ruled in favor of the manufacturers on three separate grounds, the first being that the packaging was already not misleading to the consumer.
“Here, no evidence of misleading speech is present, and by contrast, the record demonstrates that Plaintiffs’ speech is not misleading. Statements that are only ‘potentially’ misleading, by contrast, are ‘safeguarded by the First Amendment.’ Plaintiffs have demonstrated that Tofurky’s labels clearly indicate its products are meat substitutes that are plant-based and vegan and, thus, are not misleading,” the ruling stated.
Judge Robert Pitman noted in the second ground that the products do not fail the Central Hudson Test, which refers to a Supreme Court ruling regarding commercial speech and the First Amendment, according to Middle Tennessee State University.
“First, Defendants have not demonstrated that SB 664’s restrictions target a substantial government interest. Central Hudson, 447 U.S. at 566.Defendants argue that the state interest underlying the law is to ensure that consumers “understand the nature of the products they are purchasing.” (Defs.’ Mot. Summ. J., Dkt. 52, at 33). But they do not provide evidence that customers do not understand current plant-based meat labels,” the ruling stated.
The third ground declared that Senate Bill 664 is not properly facially enjoyed, since it would go against First Amendment rights. According to the Injustice for Justice law firm, universal injunctions are “court orders that prohibit the government from enforcing a challenged law against anyone, and not just against the parties challenging the law.”
“In sum, even in situations, not apparent in the record, where a plant-based food product label misleads consumers, existing law would prohibit those labels except in, possibly, a small minority of circumstances not made apparent to the Court. The law is invalid in a substantial majority of all applications and is appropriately enjoined facially. Having found that the challenged provisions of SB 664 should be facially enjoined on First Amendment grounds, the Court need not reach the other grounds for invalidating SB 664 briefed by the parties,” the ruling stated.
The final ruling stated that the Texas Health & Safety Code violated the First Amendment of the companies, and they are now enjoined from being enforced by the code.