Lawsuit over ‘handmade’ bourbon dismissed
A lawsuit claiming the “handmade” labels on Maker’s Mark bourbon whiskey were misleading to consumers was dismissed by a judge this week in San Diego federal court.
In his ruling filed Monday, U.S. District Judge John A. Houston said “handmade cannot reasonably be interpreted as meaning literally by hand nor that a reasonable consumer would understand the term to mean no equipment or automated process was used to manufacture the whiskey.”
The ruling effectively ends the lawsuit filed by Safora Nowrouzi and Travis Williams against the Kentucky distiller.
The lawsuit is among a growing number around the country that are asking companies to be more transparent about the manufacturing process, as the popularity of buying handmade and local grows.
In San Diego, a similar dispute over the production of Tito’s Handmade Vodka remains in play, as well as federal lawsuits over the “Made in the USA” labels on designer jeans.
In the Maker’s Mark case, Nowrouzi and Williams claimed they paid more for the whiskey because they believed it was handmade as advertised on its bottles and therefore of superior quality. However, the lawsuit claims the liquor is made with little to no human supervision, and the company’s website shows a mechanized process.
The bourbon maker argued that the definition of “handmade” is subjective, and that no reasonable consumer actually believes the process is done entirely by hand. The distiller describes part of the whiskey-making process on its label, it argued, and directs consumers to its website for more information.
The judge in the case agreed, saying the label cannot be found to mislead a reasonable consumer, and that there are no facts to support that the distiller acted with fraudulent intent to deceive.
The judge cited a ruling by a Florida court that dismissed similar claims against Maker’s Mark’s parent company Beam Suntory in May.
“We were confident we would prevail,” Beam Suntory spokesman Clarkson Hine said Thursday, “and we are pleased that the California court terminated this matter at an early stage, much like the Florida case two months ago.”
Abbas Kazerounian, the Orange County attorney representing the plaintiffs, said they are “obviously very disappointed” but respect the ruling and are discussing further options.
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