On January 8, 2021, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking significantly limiting the use of the short-form warning as a safe harbor. The proposed regulation makes the following changes: Limiting the use of the short-form warning to products with 5 square inches or less of label space for consumer information Requiring at least one chemical to be identified in the warning Eliminating short-form warnings in internet…

An initial question a consumer product manufacturer or retailer should consider when sued for patent infringement is: does the court have personal jurisdiction? Determining whether a court has personal jurisdiction to hear a case can help avoid liability and dismiss a case early in the proceedings. This issue can present a difficult question for litigation strategy if the defendant only placed the accused product into the stream-of-commerce. For example, if a manufacturer in Northern California…

We previously wrote about a regulation issued last year by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) exempting chemicals in coffee from Proposition 65’s warning requirement.  The question then was what effect the new regulation would have on the long-pending industry-wide enforcement action brought by the Council for Education and Research on Toxics (CERT) over acrylamide in coffee. Well, we now have an answer. The litigation, against approximately 75 roasters and retailers, was…

As more and more consumer markets brands turn to influencers and social media stars to promote their products, novel legal issues are bound to arise! Sue Ross and Eva Yang provide their analysis on a case recently litigated in the Southern District of New York that includes claims under California’s Talent Agency Act and the California Business and Professions code. Check out their post, “Social media gaming celebrity and breach of contracts,” on…

On June 22, 2020, Judge William Shubb of the US District Court for the Eastern District of California entered an order prohibiting the State of California from requiring Prop 65 warnings for glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup®. The decision was not based on whether glyphosate had been improperly listed under Prop 65, or whether the amount of exposure to average users was below the no significant risk level. Rather, the court concluded…

Earlier this year, we posted about the new wave of ADA claims that flooded the district courts in New York concerning Braille on gift cards (see Braille on gift cards: ADA accessibility issue or novel shakedown?) . Four months later, a judge in the Southern District of New York issued the first ruling to shut down one plaintiff’s claims, holding that Title III does not require Braille on gift cards. See Dominguez v. Banana…

Despite limitations on private rights of action within the California Consumer Privacy Act, many were concerned that the plaintiffs’ bar would find creative ways to skirt CCPA’s boundaries. Four months into CCPA enforcement, those concerns have been borne out. We are seeing three worrisome enforcement trends: Expanding the CCPA’s private right of action; Cloaking a CCPA claim as a California Unfair Competition law violation; and Retroactive application of the CCPA to conduct pre-dating January 1,…