Hunt, Governor of the State of North Carolina v. Washington State Apple Advertising Commn.
United States Supreme Court
432 U.S. 333 (1977)
North Carolina required all apples shipped into the state in closed containers to display only USDA grade labeling or nothing at all, eliminating the higher, non-USDA quality grading system Washington growers used and had already invested in. The Washington State Apple Advertising Commission (plaintiff) challenged the regulation as an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce; North Carolina defended it as a valid exercise of its police power to create uniform labeling and prevent consumer fraud from mislabeled apples. The district court found the regulation invalid, and Governor Hunt (defendant) appealed directly to the Supreme Court.
Whether a facially neutral state labeling regulation that requires out-of-state producers to abandon a superior grading system, while imposing no new burden on in-state producers already using the mandated system, violates the Commerce Clause.