United States v. Coca Cola Co. of Atlanta

241 U.S. 265, 36 S. Ct. 573, 60 L. Ed. 995, 1916 U.S. LEXIS 1753
CourtSupreme Court of the United States
DecidedMay 22, 1916
Docket562
StatusPublished
Cited by38 cases

This text of 241 U.S. 265 (United States v. Coca Cola Co. of Atlanta) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of the United States primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Coca Cola Co. of Atlanta, 241 U.S. 265, 36 S. Ct. 573, 60 L. Ed. 995, 1916 U.S. LEXIS 1753 (1916).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Hughes

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a libel for condemnation under the Food and Drugs Act (June 30, 1906, c. 3915, 34 Stat. 768) of a certain quantity of a food product known as ‘Coca Cola’ transported, for sale, from Atlanta, Georgia, to Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was alleged that the product was adulterated and misbranded. The allegation of adulteration was, in substance, that the product contained an added poisonous or added deleterious ingredient, caffeine, *271 which might render the product injurious to health. It was alleged to be misbranded in that the name 'Coca Cola’ was a representation of the presence of the substances coca and cola; that the product “contained no coca and little if any cola” and thus was an “imitation” of these substances and was offered for sale under their “distinctive name.” We omit other charges which the Government subsequently withdrew. The claimant answered, admitting that the product contained as one of its ingredients “a small portion of caffeine,” but denying that it was either an 'added’ ingredient, or a poisonous or a deleterious ingredient which might make the product injurious. It was also denied that there were substances known as coca and cola “under their own distinctive names,” and it was averred that the product did contain “certain elements or substances derived from coca leaves and cola nuts.” The answer also set forth, in substance, that 'Coca Cola’ was the 'distinctive name’ of the product under which it had been known and sold for more than twenty years as an article of food, with other averments negativing adulteration and misbranding under the provisions of the Act.

Jury trial was demanded, and vohlminous testimony was taken. The District Judge directed a verdict for the claimant (191 Fed. Rep. 431), and judgment entered accordingly was affirmed on writ of error by the Circuit Court of Appeals (215 Fed. Rep. 535). And the Government now prosecutes this writ.

First. As to ‘adulteration.’ The claimant, in its summary of the testimony, states that the article in question “is a syrup manufactured by the claimant . . . and sold and used as a base for soft drinks both at soda fountains and in bottles. The evidence shows that the article contains sugar, water, caffeine, glycerine, lime juice and other flavoring matters. As used by the consumer, about one ounce of this syrup is taken in a glass mixed with *272 about seven ounces of carbonated water, so that tiie consumer gets in an eight ounce glass or bottle of the beverage, about 1.21 grains of caffeine.” It is said that in the year 1886 a pharmacist in Atlanta “compounded a syrup by a secret formula, which he called ‘Coca-Cola Syrup and Extract’”; that the claimant acquired “the formula, name, label and good will for the product” in 1892, and then registered “a trade-mark for the syrup consisting of the name Coca Cola” and has since manufactured and sold, the syrup under that name. The proportion of caffeine was slightly diminished in the preparation of the article for bottling purposes. The claimant again registered the name ‘Coca Cola’ as a trade-mark in 1905, averring that the mark had been “in actual use as a trade-mark of the applicant for more than ten years next preceding the passage of the act of February 20, 1905,” and that it was believed such use had been exclusive. It is further stated that in manufacturing in accordance with the formula “certain extracts from the leaves of the Coca shrub and the nut kernels of the Cola tree were used for the purpose of obtaining a flavor” and that “the ingredient containing these extracts,” with cocaine eliminated, is designated as “Merchandise No. 5.” It appears that in the manufacturing process water and sugar are boiled to make a syrup; there are four meltings; in the second or third the caffeine is put in; after the meltings the syrup is conveyed to a cooling tank'and then to a mixing tank where the other ingredients are introduced and the final combination is effected; and from the mixing tank the finished product is drawn off into barrels for shipment.

The questions with respect to the charge of ‘adulteration’ are (1) whether the caffeine in the article was an added ingredient within the meaning of the Act (§ 7, subd. Fifth) and, if so, (2) whether it was a poisonous or deleterious ingredient which might render the article injurious to health. The decisive ruling in the courts below re- *273 suited from a negative answer to the first question. Both the District Judge and the Circuit Court of Appeals assumed for the purpose of the decision that as to the second question there was a conflict of evidence which would require its submission to the jury. (191 Fed. Rep. 433; 215 Fed. Rep. 540.) But it was concluded, as the claimant contended, that the caffeine — even if it could be found by the jury to have the alleged effect — could not be deemed to be an 'added ingredient’ for the reason that the article was a compound, known and sold under its own distinctive name, of which the caffeine was a usual and normal constituent. The Government challenges this ruling and the construction of the statute upon which it depends; and the extreme importance of the question thus presented with respect to the application of the Act to articles of food sold under trade names is at once apparent. The Government insists that the fact that a formula has been made up and followed and a distinctive name adopted do not suffice to take an article from the reach of the statute; that the standard by which the combination in such a case is to be judged is not necessarily the combination itself; that a poisonous or deleterious ingredient with the stated injurious effect may still be an added ingredient in the statutory sense, although it is covered by the formula and made a constituent of the article sold.

The term 'food’ as used in the statute includes ''all articles used for food, drink, confectionery, or condiment . . . whether simple, mixed, or compound” (§ 6). An article of 'food’ is to be deemed to be ‘adulterated’ if it contain “any added poisonous or other added deleterious ingredient which may render such article injurious to health.” (Sec. 7, subd. Fifth. 1 ) With this *274 section is to be read the proviso in § 8, to the effect that “an article of food which does not contain any added poisonous or deleterious ingredients shall not be deemed to be adulterated or misbranded” in the case of “mixtures or compounds which may be now or from time to time hereafter known as articles of food, under their own distinctive names,” if the distinctive name of another article is not used or imitated and the name on the label or brand is accompanied with a statement of the place of production. And § 8 concludes with a further proviso that nothing in the Act shall be construed “as requiring or compelling proprietors or manufacturers of proprietary foods which *275 contain no unwholesome added ingredient to disclose their trade formulas, except in so far as the proyisions of this Act may require to secure freedom from adulteration or misbranding.” 1

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Bluebook (online)
241 U.S. 265, 36 S. Ct. 573, 60 L. Ed. 995, 1916 U.S. LEXIS 1753, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-coca-cola-co-of-atlanta-scotus-1916.