## Facts

- Flooding in Nome, Alaska inundated K & L Distributors’ premises (including the Bering Sea Saloon), where alcoholic beverages and other food were stored.
- Floodwater contained seawater and raw sewage, creating a risk that the stored items were contaminated.
- The United States seized and sought condemnation of roughly 1,638 cases of alcoholic beverages and other food under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) as held under insanitary conditions whereby they may have become contaminated and injurious to health.
- K & L, as claimant, conceded the goods were adulterated under the FDCA but requested reconditioning rather than destruction.
- The FDA stated reconditioning was possible only if the alcoholic beverages were redistilled to ensure contaminants were removed.
- K & L proposed exterior cleaning (soap and water) and a hypochlorite dip, arguing redistillation would be economically ruinous.
- The district court approved the FDA’s redistillation requirement and authorized destruction if that method was not used; destruction was stayed pending appeal.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court erred under the FDCA by approving the FDA’s requirement that sewage-exposed alcoholic beverages be redistilled as a condition of reconditioning.
2. Whether the district court should have accepted the claimant’s alternative reconditioning plan based on exterior cleaning and chemical dipping.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed.
- The district court did not err in giving substantial weight to the FDA’s scientific determination that redistillation was necessary to assure safety.
- The rejection of K & L’s cleaning-and-dip proposal, and the conditional authorization of destruction if the FDA-approved method was not followed, was upheld.
- Economic hardship to the claimant did not outweigh the FDCA’s public health objective.

## Legal Principles

- Under the FDCA, condemned adulterated goods may be reconditioned only under conditions that ensure the end product complies with statutory safety standards and under FDA supervision.
- In setting technical conditions for reconditioning, courts give substantial deference to the FDA’s scientifically based judgments about methods needed to eliminate contamination risks.
- Judicial review focuses on whether the FDA-required conditions are lawful and reasonable, not on substituting judicial views for the agency’s technical assessment.
- Public health protection under the FDCA can justify stringent reconditioning requirements even when less costly alternatives are proposed.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit upheld an FDA-supervised reconditioning decree requiring redistillation of alcoholic beverages exposed to sewage-contaminated floodwater, holding that courts should defer to the FDA’s reasonable scientific judgment and that economic infeasibility does not override the FDCA’s public health mandate.


United States v. 1,638 Cases of Adulterated Alcoholic Beverages & Other Articles of Food, 624 F.2d 900 (9th Cir. 1980)