Chili Wars: Hard To Swallow

If ever there’s been a true-life illustration of the phrase “too many cooks spoil the broth, ” it is the convoluted tale of indigestion and intrigue, known as the Chili Wars of Terlingua-the story of the Chili Appreciation Society International, the Terlingua International Chili Championship Cookoff, and the Type-A chili heads who tried to make it their own.

The long-simmering issue was the ownership of the words, “Chili Appreciation Society International, ” and its acronym, CASI. In February, when he first heard the case, U. S. District Judge Lucius Bunton told both sides he’d rather they settle their differences out of court. But the CASI custody battle raged on, with the group of CASI Inc. brass who brought the case to court battling broth-er-sister Frank X. Tolbert II and Kathleen Tolbert Ryan. The two sides were unable to reach a satisfactory compromise.

The Tolberts maintained that their family should retain dominion over the Terlingua contest that began with their late father Frank X. Tolbert’s inspiration and guidance in 1967. Tolbert, who left the original group in 1983 when several of his cookoff directors began working to regulate and organize the event more strictly than he approved, moved his cookoff across town. He died a little more than a year later. Ryan argued that her father gained permanent rights to use CASI in promotions when he obtained a federal service mark on the words and acronym. The Tolbert offspring went to court to defend those rights to use the words or acronym anywhere and to hold the original cookoff in Terlingua.

A third party, uninvolved in the lawsuit, is George Haddaway, a retired editor and publisher of Flight Magazine. Haddaway has no connection with either group, although both sides acknowledge it was Haddaway and a friend who founded the original CASI (no “Inc. “) in 1947.

The no-Inc. CASI is a “non-dues paying, nonprofit missionary group of ’chili heads’ who want to improve the quality of Texas chili” says Haddaway. He says that “neither one of these outfits” has any rights to ownership of CASI and that CASI Inc. has taken a clean organization and prostituted it.

Judge Bunton ruled with CASI Inc., saying that as an individual, Tolbert could not own the trademark CASI because CASI began as the name of an association. He ordered that only CASI Inc. advertise as such in Terlingua, although there can still be a Tolbert cookoff there. No attorneys’ fees were awarded for either side, but CASI Inc. was ordered to pay the Tolberts $1, 500 for legal fees related to filing for the trademark.