L1: It was October of 1909. Federal agents took post near the Tennessee/Georgia state line, awaiting the target of their operation: a truck carrying a shipment from Atlanta to Chattanooga. The goal: to stop the distribution to the public of the illicit goods then in transport. When the truck came through, agents intercepted and seized the contraband within, which amounted to forty barrels and 20 kegs worth of Coca Cola syrup, headed to the bottling plant.
The man behind the seizure was the head of the US Department of Agriculture Bureau of Chemistry, Harvey Washington Wiley. Wiley suspected that Coca Cola contained an insidious ingredient that was a danger to the health of the public. No, not the one you are thinking of; Coca Cola stopped having what trace amounts of cocaine it once had in the late 1800s. But what it did contain was another ingredient which Wiley deemed detrimental to public health: caffeine. Wiley believed caffeine to be a very dangerous and addictive substance. He contended that the drink was so addictive because of the caffeine that the public referred to it as “dope” or “coke.” Coca Cola denied the claim (and did not trademark “coke” until the 1940s.)
Following the seizure Wiley took action Under the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which prohibited the sale to the public of foods that had been “adulterated” by the addition of harmful substances. (“An article of ‘food’ is to be deemed to be ‘adulterated’ if it contain ‘any added poisonous or other added deleterious ingredient which may render such article injurious to health.“)The Coca Cola company demanded a trial by jury in the federal District Court. In addition to the claim of adulteration, the government claimed the product was misbranded, that it “contained no coca, and little if any cola.”
The company insisted that their product contained both, though they admitted that caffeine was a part of the formula for the syrup. But they maintained that their product was not “adulterated”, because caffeine was not added to the final product; it was a component of it. In other words, caffeine was not added to Coca Cola; it was part of Coca Cola. They maintained that adulteration, as used in the Pure Food and Drug Act, referred to the addition of some foreign and harmful substance to the finished product.
The government and the Coca Cola company were also in disagreement as to the supposed dangers of caffeine, and each side set out determined to prove its case, soon realizing that research on human consumption of caffeine was scarce. To that end, the company hired a recently graduated doctoral student and college instructor named Henry Hollingsworth to conduct research into the effects of caffeine on the brain. Hollingsworth agreed to the work, provided he could publish his findings whether favorable to the company or not.
A double blind study concluded that caffeine caused in increase in cognitive function and alertness, “rapidly and temporarily uplifting.” Hollingsworth found no deleterious effects.
The jury in the District Court heard Hollingsworth’s testimony, which made headlines. But whether or not the testimony would have swayed the jury in favor of Coca Cola is unknown; the judge ordered a directed verdict in the company’s favor soon after. Specifically, the court ruled that caffeine was not an “addition“ to Coca Cola; with that question answered, the court did not have to proceed on the question of whether caffeine was a dangerous substance.
The appeals court upheld the verdict, but the government appealed to the Supreme Court. The United States v. Forty Barrels and 20 Kegs of Coca Cola is our case of the week. The SCOTUS opinion, written by Justice Hughes, was unanimous (with one justice not participating.) The Court rejected Coca Cola’s argument that a substance is not adulterated if the allegedly harmful ingredient is part of the formula for creating the substance. If that were so, said the Court, “Manufacturers would be free, for example, to put arsenic or strychnine or other poisonous or deleterious ingredients with an unquestioned injurious effect into compound articles of food, provided the compound were made according to formula and sold under some fanciful name which would be distinctive. When challenged upon the ground that the poison was an ‘added’ ingredient, the answer would be that without [the poison] the so-called food product would not be the product described by the name.”
As to the misbranding allegation, the company argued that there were both Coca leaves and Kola nuts uses in the making of the syrup but, even if there wasn’t, “Coca Cola” had ceased to be descriptive of the ingredients and was a distinctive name for a specific product. The Court opined that whether the company proved the inclusion of those ingredients was a question for a jury, and rejected the rest of the argument:
To take the illustration suggested in argument, it would permit a manufacturer, who could not use the name chocolate to describe that which was not chocolate, or vanilla to describe that which was not vanilla, to designate a mixture as ‘Chocolate-Vanilla,’ although it was destitute of either or both…
Nevertheless, the Court conceded that there could be instances in which the name of a product could take on a widely known secondary meaning specific to that product, regardless of the ingredients. It’s safe to say that in our time, that is true of Coca Cola; the phrase does not conjure images of coca leaves and kola nuts, but of the bubbly brown soft drink. But in 1916, according to the Supreme Court, that was still a toss-up for the jury to decide.
The directed verdict was tossed aside and the case was remanded for a new trial to allow a trier of fact to determine whether caffeine, which SCOTUS ruled was an added ingredient, was a danger to health and whether the name Coca Cola was misleading. Before the case could be retried, the government reached a settlement with Coca Cola, as part of which the company agreed to reduce the amount of caffeine in its product. Prior to then, an 8oz glass of Coca Cola was the approximate equivalent of a can of Red Bull.
L2: It’s been 120 years and a million lawsuits since the first fatal car accident involving a pedestrian. How might driverless cars affect that landscape?
L3: New York takes a run at eliminating cash bail, but people are predictably unhappy.
L4: The latest lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America involving sex abuse uses a novel approach to get into court.
L5: A don’t miss read: He was known as the redistricting architect of the Republican party; now his daughter has released his files, much to the chagrin of the GOP.
L6: Note to my husband, who has been T’ed up three times while coaching youth basketball this season: Kentucky is considering a law against “intimidating” sports officials.
L7: You gotta fight… for your right… to sell delicious Canadian donuts via drive-thru…
L8: Things are moving forward in Michael Avenatti’s extortion trial after a judge refuses to dismiss the charges against him.
L9: If a family court judge can’t have a threesome in her chambers with her secretary and her lover whom she recently hired to work for her, who can?
Coca-Cola was the vaping to Coffee’s cigarettes.
The government learned its lesson: Don’t let a Jury decide. Just do it and declare it’s good for the people.Report
L5: You mean redistricting architect, don’t you?Report
Yes indeed. Thank you, fixed.Report
L6: I’ve been a HS football official for nearly 30 years, and these kinds of things are a big deal in discussions in different online officiating groups. That said, the crimes in the new bills are already crimes, so I don’t think they’re really necessary. The assaults we’re trying to prevent with laws protecting officials are always crimes of passion (though what they’re passionate about is usually pretty idiotic), so a new, harsher punishment isn’t going to factor in until after the assault has already happened.
After all that, Em, let your husband know that he’s definitely being derided in the refs’ locker room. Good officials aren’t intimidated by a little yelling. Especially when the stakes are as low as they are in your kid’s games.Report
L9: The march of equal rights moves ever onward.Report
Or alternatively, since the Judge signed a formal answer denying having a sexual relationship with the two, she might be the victim of traditional smears about the sex lives of women in the limelight.Report
Don’t men often do the same if they are accused of sexual impropriety in the workplace?Report
Exactly. While I fully support the honorable judge’s right to have wild queer sex parties, having wild queer sex parties with a subordinate in the workplace is not okay.Report
Yeah, I suppose so; I just think conflicts with women tend to get expressed in the woman’s sexual mores more often. I obviously don’t know what happened, but do think her making a formal denial which (at least in my state) would amount to perjury if false makes me wonder if this is simply sour grapes from a man fired from his job and the only reason he can think he was fired is because the judge can’t control her sexual urges.Report
Well, to hear tell from certain corners of the web, men are nearly constantly accused of sexual shenanigans when they fire women!
Yes, there is something there when it comes to how people react to other peoples sexual desires (men are supposed to be randy, women – not so much). Still, if the sexes were swapped, much of the story would read the same.Report
There is an obvious sexual disparity in how these issues are framed. On the other hand, there is a real asymmetry in how the gender roles play out in practice, so it would be unexpected for our impulses to be unbiased and principled.
That said, in this particular case, it appears the principles were applied fairly. It is wrong to have sexual relationships with subordinates in the workplace, even if you’re a woman.Report
The other thing is that this woman is a judge and the legal profession has standards in how lawyers and judges are suppsoed to act. Judge Gentry’s behavior fell below those standards. Besides having sex in her chambers, all sorts of inunendo with a female judge with that phrase, Judge Gentry allowed her staff to get drunk during working hours.
Plus this is only part of the story. Lawyers have reported that they were pressured to join in these threesomes and that lawyers who refused to do so were given un-preferential treatment by the judge. That means lawyers needed to participate if they wanted their clients to get something close to a fair hearing.Report
I suppose it’s a kind of progress that we now have powerful women who can abuse their power for sexual gratification.Report
We don’t know if the situation is fair. The Judge denied that she had sexual relationships in her filing. There will be a trial where the prosecutors have to prove she had sex. I place importance on the denial because she could have equivocated by agreeing to some aspect of it, and perjury is probably a much more serious offense than the underlying sexual allegations.Report
The counter-argument is that a lot of men in the same situation would have unequivocally denied having sexual relationships as a defense even if they were guilty. It could be the truth or a standard criminal defense move. There are lots of witnesses corroborating the accusations against her.Report
Paul Krugman recently tweeted something. Charitably, he fell for a support scam. Uncharitably, some news is going to be coming out soon. To make this themely: Legal stuff.
If we take him at face value, and you should until proven otherwise due to seriousness of repercussions if it is otherwise, it sounds like he got spearfished and thought it was real.Report
Good news. He has deleted the tweet.Report
From the horse’s mouth:
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“Qanon? Who said anything about Qanon? Nobody said anything about Qanon, you must have me confused with Paul Krigconito.”Report
“It’s perfectly reasonable to be paranoid if they are, in fact, out there and have mentioned that they would like to get you. Perhaps I should be criticized for not being paranoid enough.”Report
You only get to be paranoid if they are out to get you, and actually have the means to get you.
Part of not getting got is being smarter than those out to get you, and let’s be honest, if those are the guys you are worried about, the bar for being smarter… well it ain’t that high, folks.Report
I saw this elsewhere and my first thought is “is he goofing on all of us here?” I mean, I could see someone acting like they fell for a scam for kicks and giggles.
He GENUINELY fell for the “Your Windows may have a compromise” scam phone call? Gonna be bad times when “the IRS” calls him up….
I dunno. I know “anyone” can fall for things but frankly this scam has been so discussed and joked about online that….yeah, it’s kind of baffling.
I once got the “Your Windows has a compromise” call (back before I had caller ID on my landline) and I told the guy at the other end, “Does your mother know you lie to and defraud people for a living?” I got hung up on, fast.
Being a suspicious wench has its benefits, though I will also note I once or twice deleted e-mails that turned out to be legit e-mails….Report
Problem with that kind of choice now days? Confronting anyone who calls you gets your number flagged as a “live” line with an owner who’ll pick up and your calls will increase by a factor of a hundred.Report
L9: This judge is a year younger than me. Its kind of amazing watch people your age or younger mess up their lives in spectacular ways in the way you associated with adults as an older person. Its also kind of amazing to see how many wild people in the legal profession end up doing things that destroy their careers for some temporary good times.Report