US high court declines to review kosher fraud laws
Reuters, 02.24.03, 10:45 AM ET
WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - The Supreme Court let stand Monday a ruling that struck down New York laws aimed at preventing fraud in the kosher food industry because they entangle the state with religion.
Without comment, the justices rejected appeals by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and by Orthodox Jewish groups and individual consumers and vendors of kosher products.
The laws punished vendors who, with the intent to defraud, falsely represented food products as "kosher" or prepared in accordance with "Orthodox Hebrew religious requirements."
The laws required vendors to label meat or poultry sold as kosher as "soaked or salted" or "not soaked or salted." The laws also created an advisory board to help administer and enforce the kosher fraud statutes.
The case stemmed from a 1996 lawsuit by a Long Island firm, Commack Self-Service Kosher Meats, and its owners, Brian and Jeffrey Yarmeisch. The firm has been cited for violations of the laws at least four times over a 16-year period.
The plaintiffs argued the laws deprived non-Orthodox Jewish consumers of kosher food products and infringed on the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.
A federal judge and a U.S. appeals court agreed, ruling the laws excessively entangle the state with religion and impermissibly advance Orthodox Judaism by requiring vendors to conform to Orthodox kosher standards.
The court said the laws also inhibited religion by defining "kosher" as synonymous with the views of only Orthodox Judaism and prohibiting other branches of Judaism from using the kosher label in a way consistent with their dietary requirements.
New York's appeal said the ruling "substantially implicates important constitutional issues." The other appeal by the Orthodox Jewish groups and others said the ruling may affect similar laws in 17 other states.
Lawyers for the meat business opposed the appeals, saying:
"The state's adoption of 'Orthodox Hebrew religious requirements' as the criteria is analogous to the state of New York declaring that, since Catholicism was the first denomination of Christianity, if another denomination of Christianity offered its members communion, they could only use a Eucharist and wine approved by the Roman Catholic Church."
Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service |
