Law Office Management
Feb. 2, 2009
Organic—or Just Pretending?
The makers of organic body-care products fight over exactly what qualifies as organic.
Is that organic shampoo you're using really organic? Or is it more sham than shampoo? That's the issue raised by a lawsuit in San Francisco County Superior Court that pits a small manufacturer of organic body-care products against some of the biggest names in the industry. The suit could be the opening salvo in a wider legal battle over the whole realm of organic products. Last March, Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, a family-owned organics company based in California, filed suit against ten large personal-care product manufacturers, including Estee Lauder and Giovanni, as well as various certification agencies, such as Ecocert France. The suit requests that the court compel those companies and agencies to end their allegedly "false and deceptive" claims that the products are organic. "We've been trying to resolve this for years without filing a lawsuit," says Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association, an 850,000-member group that is a defendant in a countersuit from Ecocert. "But we ... reached the point where we're tired of messing around. Still, when you get into lawsuits against gigantic companies like Estee Lauder, it gets a little scary for a public-interest group and a small company like Dr. Bronner's." The plaintiffs charge that the main cleansing and moisturizing ingredients in soaps, shampoos, and body washes made by the defendants - and labeled "organic," "organics," or "made with organics" - actually contain petrochemicals and other synthetic preservatives. The suit claims that such misleading marketing "noise" interferes with consumers' ability to distinguish truly organic personal-care products, putting Dr. Bronner's products at a competitive disadvantage. If the dispute were over organic food, the issue would be clear-cut. The National Organic Program (7 U.S.C. §§ 6502-6523; 7 C.F.R. Part 25), begun in 2001, lays out specific organic-production requirements. But it covers only food. Few observers expect the California Legislature to address the issue of organic soaps and cosmetics anytime soon, so more litigation may be on the horizon. "Personal-care products are definitely a gray area when it comes to organic claims," says Leslie Krasny, who practices food law at the San Francisco office of Keller and Heckman. "What it's going to come to is whether some of the standards and claims made on behalf of these products [will] be considered false or misleading to the consumer. It's leading to more litigation in personal-care products because in food, the issue is clear-cut."
Usman Baporia
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