Sunday, January 18, 1998

Careful not to slip on the banana peels

By Steve Ray

Folks who bad-mouth bananas, criticize carrots or slam sushi better keep their mouth shut in Texas. Just ask Oprah Winfrey.

The popular TV hostess gave beef a black eye in 1996 and faces one of two lawsuits in the state where defendants are accused of putting down food.

Honda automobiles have also been called on the courthouse carpet.

Emu ranchers say prices dropped after a TV commercial featured a folksy rancher calling emus "the pork of the future."

The lawsuits -- both filed in Amarillo -- are drawing national attention and are seen as bellwether cases for "veggie libel" laws nationwide.

Oprah's trial, set to start this week, will be the first test of the so-called food disparagement laws since Texas passed its legislation in 1995. Twelve other states passed similar laws.

Under the Texas law, folks are held liable for spreading false information that a perishable food is not safe for public consumption. It lets producers who lose money because of that claim try to collect damages.

Similar laws started cropping up after a 1989 "60 Minutes" segment alleged a chemical that caused apples to grow was a carcinogen. Carcinogens are thought to cause cancer. Growers sued CBS, saying they lost $130 million, but in 1993 a federal judge ruled against them.

State Rep. Bob Turner, a conservative Democrat from Voss whose agriculture and military background has gained him increasing influence in legislative circles, sponsored the Texas law.

"I've had a chance to see agriculture production from the ground up all the way through the market place," Turner said. "And I've watched high-profile media people influencing issues in the marketplace."

He says he remembers how incidents similar to the Oprah show on beef affected cranberry crops in Wisconsin and cantaloupe crops in the Pecos Valley.

"It killed cranberry sauce for the whole Thanksgiving and Christmas season," he said. "And there's not a heck of a lot of people who eat it on the Fourth of July."

Remarks made about food can end a year's worth of work by producers, Turner said, and it can bankrupt people -- an issue that many people forget in the levity of talk about libeling vegetables.

"Ag producers see this as a safety net," Turner said. "But this law was not passed with the idea of just getting people in court. It was meant to make people accept a degree of responsibility when they make statements that can affect hundreds of people's lives and their livelihood."

It could also affect the First Amendment right to free speech, according to some critics.

And it's a little ironic that the lawsuit being billed as a First Amendment case has a gag order on it, so lawyers can't talk about their proof.

But you can't gag Turner. He's been interviewed at least 25 times this month, including a recent appearance on the Geraldo Rivera show.

And he says the issue has nothing to do with the Constitution.

"Listen," he says. "I spent 35 years in the military defending some idiot's rights to do things that are constitutionally guaranteed. That should tell you how strongly I feel about the Constitution.

"Yes we have freedom of speech, but along with freedom of speech comes some degree of responsibility. This law doesn't affect someone's right to speak out. It does affect the consequences of that action if they commit liable."

That doesn't squelch some people's concern that the outcome of this case will affect what you can and can't say about food.

"It doesn't have anything to do with likes and dislikes," Turner promised. "It's only if you claim the food causes health problems."

Whew. That's a relief. Because if the truth were known, I just can't stand green beans.

Steve Ray is chief of the Scripps Howard Austin Bureau.