Perkins Coie is pleased to announce the launch of our sixth annual Food Litigation Year in Review. In recognition of the firm’s practice expansion, this year-in-review report has been broadened to the Food & Consumer Packaged Goods Litigation Year in Review 2021. Accompanying the 2021 report are infographics that highlight key litigation outcomes, filing

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 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.
Consumer Brands Protecting Marketing Budgets Amid Turbulent Times
According to the Financial Times*, consumer packaged goods (CPG) had been among the most resilient industries during the pandemic. Even as CPG brands are facing increasing food and input prices among other market disruptions, many companies are maintaining and even increasing their marketing budgets. But at the same time, companies are scrutinizing ad spend…
Food & Consumer Packaged Goods Litigation Year in Review 2020
Perkins Coie is pleased to announce that its fifth annual Food Litigation Year in Review, in coordination with the expansion of the firm’s practice, has been broadened and renamed the Food & Consumer Packaged Goods Litigation Year in Review. In coordination with this rebranding, we have also launched an infographic report that highlights key litigation outcomes, filing data, and industry trends. Despite a tumultuous year, one thing stayed the same: plaintiffs’ class action attorneys continued to file plenty of lawsuits against manufacturers of consumer packaged goods (CPGs).
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Putative CBD Chocolate Class Action Dismissed: Allegations Must Be Plead with Particularity
A recent putative class action regarding edible cannabidiol (CBD) products reminds potential plaintiffs of the importance of pleading with particularity.
On behalf of a putative class of consumers, a purchaser alleged that Bhang Medicinal Chocolates contained a smaller quantity of CBD than the product advertised. Plaintiff asserted that he had independent lab testing to support…
Industry Insights: Day Two of the 5th Annual Food Law CLE Conference
On March 3, 2020, CLE International held the second day of Food Law: Navigating the Intersection Between Regulation of Litigation. Now in its fifth year, the conference convenes individuals from the plaintiffs’ bar, academia, industry, and large law firms.
Perkins Coie’s David T. Biderman presented alongside attorneys from the plaintiff and defense bar on the panel “The Reasonable Consumer: An Interactive Debate.” Panelists discussed recent trends in reasonable consumer decisions from the Second and Ninth Circuits and how these developments may affect the reasonable consumer doctrine moving forward.…
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Industry Insights: Day One of the 5th Annual Food Law CLE Conference
On March 2, 2020, CLE International held the first day of Food Law: Navigating the Intersection Between Regulation of Litigation. Now in its fifth year, the conference convenes individuals from the plaintiffs’ bar, academia, industry, and large law firms.
Today’s presentations included discussions of litigation case studies and regulatory issues facing food companies in today’s marketplace. For example, in-house counsel detailed their perspectives on the FDA’s standards of identity, the agency’s definition of “healthy,” and other regulatory developments in the context of advances of food and nutritional science. Specifically, general counsel for several food companies discussed issues with compliance with regulations finalized decades ago and ongoing efforts to update regulations using citizen petitions and other means to adapt to changes in food technology. Other panels focused on advocacy strategies of non-governmental organizations through both regulation and litigation. Panelists from the Animal Legal Defense Fund and other public interest organizations discussed allegations of “humane-washing,” and an increase in lawsuits targeting animal welfare claims on consumer packaged goods (CPG) labeling.…
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Food Litigation Year in Review 2019
Perkins Coie is pleased to present its fourth annual Food Litigation Year in Review 2019, offering a summary of the past year’s key litigation outcomes, regulatory developments, and filing data. Using metrics from our proprietary database, developed by our food litigation team in order to track and understand trends in this area, 2019’s Year in Review again reports an increase in class action litigation, with a record-breaking 173 new lawsuits filed. The upward filing trends in the class action landscape are mirrored in other industries and in the prosecution of related claims: putative class actions against the pet food and dietary supplement industries were on the rise in 2019, as were Proposition 65 warning notices.
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Industry Insights: Multiple CBD Class Actions Filed With More Expected
On the heels of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) recent declarations regarding the safety of products containing cannabidiol (CBD), several companies have been hit with class action lawsuits alleging that that the company’s CBD-containing products are mislabeled and falsely advertised in violation of state law. Further class action litigation is expected given the …
Notable Ruling: D.C. Superior Court Issues Ruling on Standing Under DCCPPA
In an Order issued earlier this week, the D.C. Superior Court entered an important ruling on the District’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act (DCCPPA). While the ruling ultimately found that the plaintiffs in the suit had standing, it substantially trimmed the theories upon which that standing was grounded.
In Praxis Project et al. v. The Coca-Cola Company, two individuals and a non-profit organization lodged suit against the beverage manufacturer alleging that the manufacturer had made false, deceptive, and misleading representations about its sugar-sweetened beverages in violation of the DCCPPA. Among other things, the Plaintiffs alleged they had standing to lodge the suit based on the DCCPPA’s unique standing provisions.…
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PC Food Litigation Index: May 2019
There were seventeen new cases filed in May, putting total filings for the year at seventy-two. By this time last year, plaintiffs had filed sixty-nine food and beverage cases. Most of the new filings were in California, with a few in New York and one in Missouri. All seventeen of the new cases were false labeling cases.
In a continued expansion of the “sustainability/human rights” cases, several tuna companies were sued in the Northern District of California for allegedly misleading consumers about whether their tuna is dolphin safe. Plaintiffs allege that the tuna suppliers use fishing tactics that can be harmful to dolphins, rendering their “Dolphin Safe” labels misleading under California law and similar laws from all fifty states. These cases evoke similar human rights supply chain cases pursued, largely without success, in the last few years in the Ninth Circuit including the Chipotle GMO supply chain case, Schneider v. Chipotle Mexica Grill, Inc., and the recent Ninth Circuit omissions case, Hodsdon v. Mars.
Other cases of note include DiGregorio v. Kellogg Sales Company, a Northern District of New York case alleging that Kellogg misleadingly marketed high-sugar cereals as healthy. This case mirrors Hadley v. Kellogg Sales Co., which currently pending in the Northern District of California. Plaintiffs in Hadley and DiGregorio make the same claims and are represented by the same plaintiffs’ counsel. …
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