With fifteen new cases filed in April, total filings on the year are slightly down from last year—there have been sixty-nine total new filings in 2019 compared with seventy-seven by this time last year. Most new filings were in California. Only one new case was filed in New York, down from six last month. Most of the new cases were false labeling cases, with only one slack fill and two all-natural cases.  Plaintiffs in Shand…

Imported food contaminants, potential criminal liability for allergen-related deaths, and a growing demand for hemp seed and cannabidiol (CBD) products amidst regulatory uncertainty were all topics of discussion at this year’s American Conference Institute (ACI) Advanced Summit on Food Law Regulation, Compliance, and Litigation, held in Chicago.  Representatives from the country’s largest food manufacturers, food and beverage agency regulators, and food litigation experts gathered in April to discuss recent product trends and regulatory developments…

As we end the first quarter of 2019, we are seeing that the pace of class action filings in the food and beverage industry is consistent with the pace we saw in 2018.  California and New York continue to be hotbeds for activity with New York slightly outpacing California. Most of the filings in the first quarter were related to general false labeling claims. Several separate cases targeted the “Kona” labels on coffee, claiming that…

On March 25, 2019, Judge Gary L. Sharpe of the Northern District of New York dismissed a putative class action against CVS and Lang Pharma alleging that the labeling of defendants’ CVS Omega-3 Krill Oil is deceptive and misleading.  Plaintiff in the lawsuit, James Gaminde, alleged that CVS Omega-3 Krill Oil contained only sixty percent of the 300mg of Omega-3 Krill Oil represented by the label, and therefore violated New York’s General Business Law sections…

As you all know, the Northern District of California jury found earlier this week that Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide product was a “substantial factor” in causing a plaintiff’s non Hodgkin lymphoma. The defendants and industry were all very optimistic that the trial, which focused solely on causation and not knowledge or company conduct, would result in an impartial scientific analysis. Unfortunately, the jury ignored a very substantial body of literature that glyphosate, the active ingredient in…

Perkins Coie is pleased to present its third annual Food Litigation Year in Review, offering a summary of the year’s key litigation outcomes, regulatory developments, and filing data. Last year, pointing to uncertainty at the appellate level, Perkins Coie predicted continued litigation in 2018. Using metrics from our proprietary database, developed by our food litigation team in order to track and understand trends in this area, 2018’s Year in Reviewagain reports an increase in class…

Consumer class action suits continue to target food products that plaintiffs allege don’t actually contain the ingredients highlighted in their labels. For example, in one such false fact case last month, the plaintiff argued that the labels for Panera Bread’s blueberry bagels are misleading; allegedly, the bagels do not contain blueberries at all, only pieces of dyed sugar and flour meant to look like blueberries. (Similar past lawsuits have targeted blueberry-labeled products sold at Dunkin…