Habeas Codfish: Reflections on Food and the Law

As the author writes, food is more than nutrients, It is our culture, and thus our laws reflect our cultural attitudes towards food. I picked up this fish-tale of laws by a curator of a mustard museum after I coincidentally attended a mustard festival. Levenson's book requires no pre-knowledge of the law; it provides an exciting, funny, enlightening story of food and our laws. Levenson writes that he toiled at a boring law job until he came across an exciting law case from 1924, in which a man sued a railroad and restaurant chain for requiring diners to wear dinner jackets. Now that was an interesting case (the barbaric diner lost), he thought. It got Levenson on a roll of researching and collecting food laws. The reader is the beneficiary. The author provides stories and cases on food poisoning; the origins of the USDA FSIS, FTC and FDA; adulteration; advertising claims; and federal regulations defining peanut butter, catsup, fancy and standard ketchup. Also explored are The Delaney Clause, the labeling act, the Lanham Act, the doctrine of privity, the condom in the coke and other stories of foreign objects, fish bone choking cases, and stories about trademarks, such as the case between Planter's Mr. Peanut and Crown Nut's little peanut king. There is a whole chapter on kosher laws, state regulations, and kosher fraud. He explains why restaurant reviews can get around libel laws, why 60 Minutes was sued over an Alar story, and Oprah got in trouble with big beef. A Wisconsin resident, he tells the tale of how a state tried to stop Dairy Queen and margarine from crossing its statelines.Hilarious synopses of cases are also included in easily readable form, including stories about the robber who left his fingerprints behind on a pack of hotdogs; the court that convicted a man of assault with an edible weapon (a salami); the man who sued a restaurant over having to pay a mandatory 15 percent tip for his party of `six or more'; the murderer who was put to death and whose last words complained that "I didn't get my SpaghettiOs" for his final meal; a 1962 case over a hard stale roll; and the Dept of Justice's prohibition (using the Clayton Act) of Mrs. Smith Pies purchase of LJ Harris Pie Company (so they couldn't get a bigger piece of the pie (market)). Levenson also explains the law behind how Pizza Hut was able to sue Papa John's pizza over tomato sauce commercials, and why, in Liebeck vs McDonald's, a 79 year old woman, Stella, was INITIALLY awarded $2.86 million over a spilled cup of hot coffee. (She only wanted $20,000, McDonald's offered $800, and then the lawyers got involved). Buy it and read it before you take another bite!