Egg Carton Labels Do Not Have To Disclose Production Methods.

Various federal governmental agencies with regulatory authority over the labeling of eggs were sued by the plaintiff, an animal activist group whose founder doesn't even eat eggs, seeking an order from the court that would force the agencies to adopt regulations mandating that egg producers disclose production methods on egg cartons.  All of the agencies refused the plaintiff's petition.  The court refused to issue on order that would force any of the agencies to issue the mandated labeling, noting that the Food and Drug Administration acted within its discretion to refuse to issue the requested labeling regulation as not being a priority given limited resources.  The court also concluded that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)  had appropriately found that the plaintiff's petition lacked sufficient evidence to allow the FTC to conclude that consumers are deceived by current labeling practices and , as a result, regulation action was not warranted.  The court also held that the Agriculture Marketing Service (AMS) acted appropriately in not adopting such a regulation because the AMS lacked the authority to adopt such a regulation.  The court also held that the Food Safety Inspection Service did not act in an arbitrary or capricious manner in refusing to developing the requested labeling regulatory mandate because the agency correctly determined that it lacked regulatory authority to do so.  Compassion Over Killing, et al. v. Food and Drug Administration, et al., No. 13-cv-01385-VC, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 176928 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 23, 2014).