The Center for Food Safety is a private entity, not to be confused with the federal Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. It is also in contempt of court, a potentially costly place to be.

Late Thursday, U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer ruled the Center for Food Safety is in civil contempt for having "failed to obey a subpoena and, on top of that, (having) failed to obey a specific court order without legal basis." Judge Collyer ordered the group to cough up the subpoenaed documents by Nov. 16, or start paying $1,000 a day for its failure.

Judge Collyer sets up the case this way:

"The Center for Food Safety abhors the application of sewage sludge onto land, believing that it is harmful to animal health and the environment. It, and its Executive Director Andrew C. Kimbrell, have offered support and information to a group of plaintiffs in a qui tam lawsuit that challenges the accuracy of a report on the subject done for the Environmental Protection Agency and alleges that the authors violated the False Claims Act."

Abhors: nice word choice.

Evidently, the original qui tam lawsuit evolved into a separate lawsuit, by which parties tried to obtain Center for Food Safety documents. The subpoenas were issued April 29. The Center claimed the material was privileged, but otherwise proved largely uncommunicative for some time. Judge Collyer flicked away the Center's arguments for why the subpoenas shouldn't be enforced, and here we are.