Chanler Says Meat Industry Lawsuit is a SLAPP– By Dennis Pfaff at Prop. 65 Clearinghouse

Posted: 11/15/2005  browse the blog archive

Excerpted from the full length article at Prop. 65 Clearinghouse:

A meat industry attempt to get a state court to declare that Proposition 65 warnings on beef would be barred by federal law should be tossed out as a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP), argues attorney Clifford Chanler in a new filing in the case.

The industry’s San Diego Superior Court lawsuit “is expressly aimed at preventing Dr. [Whitney] Leeman from petitioning the courts in connection with a matter of great public interest,” Chanler argued in a July 28 brief filed on Leeman’s behalf. The American Meat Institute and the National Meat Association filed their declaratory relief case against Leeman this spring. In it, they asserted that federal meat inspection statutes would bar Proposition 65 warnings…

… The Federal Meat Inspection Act, the law at the center of the industry’s argument, does not expressly preempt Proposition 65, Chanler argued. For one thing, he maintained, the law does not bar signs in stores. For another, since both dioxins and PCBs are poisons, meat containing them in “adulterated” under the meaning of the federal law. Thus, under the circumstances, “Proposition 65 is nothing more than California’s ‘exercise of concurrent jurisdiction’” with the federal government, Chanler wrote, quoting the federal statute. link to source.