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 v. Original New York Seltzer, 19STCV14020 (La. Supp. Ct.), alleged that defendant seltzer beverages are labeled as though they are a product of New York, when the drink is neither bottled in New York nor contains New York water. Shand adds to a recent trend of similar “origin” lawsuits, including several suits last month challenging coffee manufacturers’ characterization of beans as “Kona-style” when they were not grown on the Big Island. Tea beverages were under fire in April. Plaintiffs in several cases alleged that defendants misleadingly labeled their tea products as providing energy from ginseng when the products do not contain detectable amounts of ginseng.

On the natural front, plaintiffs in one case alleged that defendants misleadingly labeled their parmesan cheese product as “all natural” when it contains starch and potassium sorbate. In another, plaintiffs claim defendant misleading labeled its tapenade as “all natural,” even though it contains xanthan gum.

Annual Filing Trends

Filings by Jurisdiction

Filings by Category

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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.

Photo of Charles Sipos Charles Sipos

Charles Sipos is a class action litigator with more than two decades of experience focusing on technology, consumer goods, and privacy issues.

He litigates class actions nationwide and has appeared and argued on behalf of defendants in federal courts, including in California, Colorado…

Charles Sipos is a class action litigator with more than two decades of experience focusing on technology, consumer goods, and privacy issues.

He litigates class actions nationwide and has appeared and argued on behalf of defendants in federal courts, including in California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second, Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits. Charles’ litigation successes have included dismissals and summary judgment based on lack of Article III injury, statutory standing under consumer protection laws, federal preemption, primary jurisdiction, failure to allege damages, First Amendment protection for commercial speech, the “reasonable consumer” standard, and related defenses.