Jane Metcalf, Partner

The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) promotes nationwide uniformity in food labeling by establishing a comprehensive federal labeling scheme and preempting state law that imposes different requirements.  21 U.S.C. § 343-1(a).  Over the years, the FDA has issued regulations directed to specific labeling issues, including representations of a food product’s “primary recognizable flavor.”  21 C.F.R. §§ 101.22(a)(3), 170.3(o)(12).  So long as a label’s representation of a “primary recognizable flavor” complies with the FDA’s flavoring regulation, the label is not misleading, and any state law that supposedly says otherwise is preempted.

As many readers probably know, when a food or beverage manufacturer gets a consumer class action alleging that its labeling violated state law, one of the first things it should do is consider whether the disputed aspect of the labeling is covered by the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (“FDCA”).  Many provisions of that statute—and, by extension, their implementing regulations—expressly preempt non-identical state-law regulations.  If a putative class of consumers is asking a manufacturer to do something different with its labeling than those provisions do, there is a strong argument that the case is preempted:  federal law (the FDCA) trumps state law (the relevant consumer protection statute).

California has long been considered a hospitable place to bring a class action, and accordingly it’s also been a popular one.  But some class action plaintiffs in the Golden State have encountered an unlikely hurdle:  the unavailability of equitable remedies when there is an adequate remedy at law. 

A recent decision, MillerCoors v. Anheuser-Busch Cos., LLC, No. 19-cv-218-wmc, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88259 (W.D. Wis. May 24, 2019), denied and granted in part a preliminary injunction enjoining a series of advertisements and commercials depicting corn syrup in MillerCoors’s beer.

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).

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.