Case Notes

In In re Fruit Juice Products Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation, C.A. No. 11-MD-02231-MAP (D. Mass. Dec. 21, 2011), the Environmental Law Foundation (ELF), a non-profit organization, sent notices to numerous manufacturers of juice and packaged fruit products, including the defendants, alleging their products contained amounts of lead greater than the permissible daily intake level set by the California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986. The notice prompted the FDA to check the lead levels of some of the products and conclude that “[a]lmost all of the products ' contained a small amount of lead, but in each case the level found would not pose an unacceptable health risk.” Notwithstanding the FDA's conclusion, various individual plaintiffs brought suits in multiple federal district courts against various defendants.

The suits were consolidated for pre-trial purposes in an MDL in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, and amended complaints by two groups of individual plaintiffs asserting class actions against two groups of defendants were filed. Based on the ELF notice, the plaintiffs alleged that the lead in the defendants' products could lead to health risks and claimed, among other things, violations of state consumer protection laws and breach of the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The defendants moved to dismiss the complaints, arguing, among other things, that the plaintiffs lacked standing because none of them had been physically injured by the defendants' products. The court agreed and allowed the defendants' motion.