Supreme Court Refuses Alar Case

The Supreme Court Monday refused to revive a lawsuit brought by Washington state apple growers against CBS over a “60 Minutes” report on the pesticide, Alar.

The decision ends the growers’ six-year effort to avenge a 1989 broadcast they claim cost them $75 million in lost sales and damaged the reputation of red apples.

The court, without comment, let stand rulings last year by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that said the growers’ product disparagement suit failed to prove the broadcast contained any false statements.

Apple growers’ lawyers urged the justices to use the case “to determine the extent to which the First Amendment protects literally true statements with defamatory implications.”

The Constitution’s First Amendment protects freedom of speech.

The “60 Minutes” program linked Alar, a growth regulator then sprayed on apples, to cancer risks to children. The pesticide has since been taken off the market.