Wednesday, February 8, 1984
A sharply divided U.S. Court of Appeals panel yesterday dealt a setback to consumers seeking comprehensive ingredient labeling on alcoholic beverages.</br></br>The court, in effect, voided earlier administrative and judicial decisions that would have forced wineries, breweries and distilleries to tell what they put in their beverages both before and during the manufacturing process.</br></br>But the two-judge majority also left the way open for further legal challenges to the Treasury DepartmentÛªs existing policy and rejected industry attempts to erase an earlier U.S. District Court ruling that could help the consumer groups in the next round of the long-running fight.</br></br>The majority ruling, written by Senior Judge George E. MacKinnon, said there was no reason to continue a legal fight over the Reagan administrationÛªs original decision to rescind the labeling requirements, since the Treasury has since undertaken a second, separate rulemaking on the same issue.</br></br>The opinion was accompanied by a biting dissent, in which Judge J. Skelly Wright argued that his colleagues were inviting Treasury to filibuster legal proceedings endlessly.