YOUR SOURCE ON FOOD LITIGATION AND REGULATION
Sonic Drive-In reached a $4.3 million settlement on October 10 with its customers over the chain’s data security breach in 2017 that exposed customer credit and debit card information at 325 Sonic Drive-In locations.
In the last few years, food and beverage companies have been defending against a new trend of claims related not to the products they manufacture, but the packages in which the products are sold.
In a decision that will impact numerous lawsuits in the lower courts, in Kane v. Chobani (No. 14-15670 (9th Cir. Mar. 24, 2016)) the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stayed proceedings in a class action regarding the alleged misuse of the term “natural” on food labels until the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has completed its review of the term.
On November 17, the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a press release announcing that it and other federal agencies have slapped more than 100 makers and marketers of dietary supplements with civil and criminal cases over the last year.
A new trend in California employment litigation may result in food industry employers being subject to minimum wage claims.
POM Wonderful is no longer just spilling over into new product areas; it is now also spilling over into other legal claims.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio granted preliminary approval for another class action settlement related to beverage label claims on September 25—this time involving the Coca-Cola Company.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California has joined its sister court in the Northern District and delayed yet another case about “evaporated cane juice” (ECJ).