Misbranded is Patterson Belknap’s blog covering false advertising litigation—both consumer class actions and competitor suits—with a particular focus on FDA-regulated products (foods/beverages, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and dietary supplements). Writing from the industry perspective, we provide timely updates on important cases, surveys of litigation trends, and in-depth analyses of “hot” legal issues. Our firm pioneered the modern practice of false advertising law more than 40 years ago, bringing the first competitor suits under the Lanham Act. In the decades since, we have continued to practice at the cutting edge, handling many of the field’s most groundbreaking cases on behalf of the nation’s best-known businesses. Today, led by Steven A. Zalesin, our team advocates creatively, strategically, and efficiently on behalf of our clients at all phases of litigation, from pre-complaint demands to Supreme Court appeals.
While the New England Patriots were besting the Rams in the 2019 Super Bowl, Anheuser-Busch tried to get the upper hand on MillerCoors in a series of ads highlighting the “use of” corn syrup in Miller Lite and Coors Light.
A recent decision from the Eastern District of New York, Hoth v. Gerber Prods. Co., 15-cv-2995 (E.D.N.Y.), granted class certification to purchasers of Gerber baby formula in Florida and New York who claimed to have been misled by representations that the formula reduced infants’ risk of developing allergies. The certified class is unusual, however, in that not all of its members actually purchased the product labeled with the alleged misrepresentation. Many courts have concluded that this lack of uniform exposure defeats certification by precluding a showing of classwide injury, but the Hoth court credited evidence that the general “advertising and labeling practice [regarding allergy prevention] allowed a price premium to be charged across the entire line of [challenged] products.” Op. at 41 (emphasis in original).
Last Friday, the Third Circuit held that a J. Crew customer lacked standing to sue the company for printing ten digits of his credit card on a receipt, in violation of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (which provides that companies should print only the last four digits). Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Spokeo v. Robins, the court held that the plaintiff’s alleged injuries—a violation of the statute and the “risk of identity theft”—were merely “procedural,” and thus insufficiently “concrete” to confer standing under Article III. The Third Circuit’s rigorous application of Article III standing requirements is good news for defendants in mislabeling cases, some of which are “gotcha”-type suits arising from highly technical labeling violations.
Many recent consumer class actions against food and beverage manufacturers have related to label claims that a particular category of ingredient is not used in the product—e.g., “No Preservatives,” “No Artificial Flavors.” These lawsuits follow a predictable formula: the plaintiff, relying on the product’s ingredient list, alleges that a particular ingredient in the product functions as an artificial flavor and/or chemical preservative, and that the “no preservatives” or “no artificial flavors” claim is therefore false.
In consumer cases alleging product mislabeling, one frequently litigated question is whether the plaintiff has standing to seek an injunction of the labeling practice that he or she claims is misleading. Over the past decade, consumer protection defendants have often won on this issue by demonstrating that the plaintiff is at no risk of future injury. But last year, in Davidson v. Kimberly-Clark Corp., 889 F.3d 956 (9th Cir. 2018), the Ninth Circuit made this issue tougher for defendants, adopting an exceptionally broad view of plaintiffs’ standing to seek injunctive relief in mislabeling cases. Below, we discuss the aberrant holding in Davidson, and how Ninth Circuit defendants may still be able to distinguish its facts to defeat a claim for injunctive relief.
