Aurora Dairy Organic Milk Case: Eighth Circuit Preempts Some Claims And Remands Others
As we reported some time ago, a class action suit was pending in the Eastern District of Missouri against Aurora Dairy, its organic certifier and certain retailers for violation of state consumer protection laws. The district court had dismissed the case on the grounds that all claims were preempted by the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 (OFPA), and the plaintiffs appealed to the court of appeals for the Eighth Circuit. On September 15, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of some of the claims and remanded the remaining claims to the district court.
Nineteen class action suits across the nation had been consolidated into a single action in the Eastern District of Missouri. In a consolidated class action, the plaintiffs made claims against Aurora Dairy Corporation, a certified organic dairy located in Boulder, Colorado, QAI, Inc., a certifying agent under the National Organic Program administered by the USDA, which had certified Aurora’s milk as organic, and certain retailers who had sold Aurora’s milk under Aurora’s brand as well as under their own store brands. A total of 57 counts were brought against the several defendants, on theories ranging from violation of state consumer protection laws to violation of implied warranties under the Uniform Commercial Code to unjust enrichment and negligence per se. The district court dismissed all the claims on the grounds of so-called “conflict preemption”, where allowing states to regulate an area would conflict with Congress’s regulation scheme.
The Eighth Circuit agreed with the conflict preemption analysis as it related to QAI, the certifying agent, which was dismissed from the case in full, and as it related to the labeling of the products as “organic” based on the certification by QAI.
To the extent the class plaintiffs, relying on state consumer protection or tort law, seek to set aside Aurora’s certification, or seek damages from any party for Aurora’s milk being labeled as organic in accordance with the certification, we hold that state law conflicts with federal law and should be preempted.
The court of appeals disagreed, however, with the district court on other claims, stating,
Preempting state law claims unrelated to the decision to certify, and certification compliance, does not advance the purpose of establishing national standards for organic foods. Nor does preemption of the facts underlying certification advance the goals of assuring consumers that organics meet a consistent standard, or in facilitating interstate commerce in organics.
The court remanded the case to the district court to determine, based on the standards in its decision, which claims would survive against Aurora and the retailers. This was due in part to the district court having not decided, on the grounds that it was moot, motions by the defendants to strike the consolidated complaint and by the plaintiffs’ motion to the amend it. Thus, the district court’s first task would be to decide those motions before it can determine what claims, if any survive.
Court Rules That Retailers Have No Duty to Investigate Suppliers Compliance with Organic Regulations
An important ruling was issued last week dismissing claims that milk produced by an organically certified dairy and labeled as organic was not really organic. Plaintiffs in the action asserted violations of various states’ laws because they claimed that they paid more for the milk because it was labeled as "organic.”
A federal judge in the Eastern District of Missouri granted a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss on a multitude of cases pending against the dairy, various retailers selling the dairy products and others (originally these suits were filed in various federal courts around the country but were consolidated for pretrial purposes by the United States Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation or MDL).
The judge ruled that claims against the dairy were preempted because a “conflict exists between federal and state law” (otherwise known as “conflict preemption”). As explained in the opinion, conflict preemption exists where “a party’s compliance with both federal and state law would be impossible or where state law would pose an obstacle to the accomplishment of congressional objectives.” Here, the court found that for “plaintiff’s claims to succeed, the Court would have to invalidate the regulatory scheme established under the OFPA [Organic Foods Production Act] and NOP [National Organic Program].” The court concluded that if plaintiffs were to prevail “producers would be liable even where fully certified and authorized to use these terms and seals.”
For the retailer defendants, the judge ruled that because plaintiffs’ claims against the dairy are preempted, “the retailer Defendants cannot be liable.” But the court went further and dealt explicitly with the plaintiffs’ claims that the retailers “should have investigated” the dairy’s activities to ensure compliance with the OFPA and NOP. The court rejected these arguments:
The Retailer Defendants did not have any duty to inspect [the dairy’s] facilities, or the facilities of any of their other organic producers. Imposing such a requirement “would place an undue burden on the distributor who is least likely to have access to such information.”
This should be good news for organic retailers. Hopefully, this decision will reduce their legal exposure to consumer labeling claims going forward.
