Our weekly roundup aims to keep our readers up to date on recent notable rulings in the food & consumer packaged goods space.

  • Darlene Hollins, et al. v. Walmart, Inc., et al., No. 21-56031 (9th Cir. – May 11, 2023): The Ninth Circuit affirmed the Central District of California’s order granting summary judgment in a consumer class action challenging the labeling of glucosamine sulfate supplements. The plaintiffs argued the supplements had a different chemical composition than advertised. The panel upheld the district court’s ruling that plaintiff’s state-law claims were preempted by federal law because plaintiffs’ own expert witness’ testing methods were not accepted by the FDA to validate label claims or reflect ingredients’ common or usual names. Opinion linked here.
  • Keith Carroll, et al. v. The J.M. Smucker Co., No. 3:22-cv-08952-WHA (N.D. Cal. – June 15, 2023): The Northern District of California dismissed a putative class action alleging that the company’s website violated the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), enacted to prohibit the wrongful disclosure of video tape rental or sale records, by implementing data tracking technology on its website, which collects information about website. The court dismissed the case on personal jurisdiction grounds, finding significant jurisdictional deficiencies and a failure to tie the challenged conduct to California. Opinion linked here.
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Photo of David T. Biderman David T. Biderman

David Biderman, a partner in Perkins Coie’s San Francisco and Los Angeles offices, focuses his practice on mass tort litigation and consumer class actions. He heads the firm’s Mass Tort and Consumer Litigation group. He has represented a wide variety of companies in…

David Biderman, a partner in Perkins Coie’s San Francisco and Los Angeles offices, focuses his practice on mass tort litigation and consumer class actions. He heads the firm’s Mass Tort and Consumer Litigation group. He has represented a wide variety of companies in state and federal courts in California for 30 years.

On consumer class actions, David represents packaged food companies, coffee companies, dairy companies, footwear companies and others whose nutritional or health claims have been challenged. He also has represented search engines and other online companies. He has a record of favorable results for clients. He successfully tried a major consumer fraud class action on behalf of one of the world’s major search engines in a case involving online gambling advertisements. For that same client, he negotiated a favorable settlement of a class action challenging its online advertising pricing. He represented a major coffee retailer in defeating a class action on standing grounds. He also has litigated pre-emption defenses arising out of food labeling and obtained a dismissal for a client whose nutritional statements were challenged.

For fifteen years, David managed the firm’s full-service product liability team responsible for defending over 1,000 toxic tort cases pending in Los Angeles and Northern California state courts. These cases entailed ongoing trial activity at various levels for several trials set each month. The highly experienced and well-coordinated team has handled thousands of asbestos toxic tort cases for a variety of clients, including FORTUNE 500 companies from such industries as consumer products, aerospace manufacturing, household goods, dry cleaning and industries that generate electromagnetic fields, such as electric utilities and operators of wireless communications systems.

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Photo of Tommy Tobin Tommy Tobin

Thomas Tobin’s practice focuses on complex commercial litigation and class action matters involving statutory, constitutional, and regulatory issues in a range of industries, including food and beverage, consumer packaged goods, and cannabis. In the food and beverage sector, Tommy has experience defending false…

Thomas Tobin’s practice focuses on complex commercial litigation and class action matters involving statutory, constitutional, and regulatory issues in a range of industries, including food and beverage, consumer packaged goods, and cannabis. In the food and beverage sector, Tommy has experience defending false advertising claims and consumer protection claims for well-known international corporations.

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