Monthly Archives: September 2017

By Ann Grimaldi and Jennifer Karpinski Singh If your business is currently using Proposition 65 warnings pursuant to a consent judgment, take heed: You may need to modify the judgment to address business, not legal, pressure to use the new warnings recently established under the new safe harbor warning regulations that go into effect August 30, 2018. California law has long required businesses to provide clear and reasonable warnings prior to exposing individuals to chemicals placed on the Proposition 65 list. However, recent shake-ups in what defines “clear and reasonable” are changing the liability landscape for businesses selling products in,…

On September 14, 2017, the California Senate and Assembly passed AB 1583, and Governor Brown is expected to sign it into law. This bill is intended to promote transparency in Proposition 65 private enforcement.  To be sure, private enforcement is in dire need of increased transparency. However, whether this bill will be robust enough to achieve that goal -- that is uncertain. The bill contains three main components: It will make the basis for the Certificate of Merit discoverable to the public, subject to legal privileges. It will require the Attorney General to formally communicate to the private enforcer and…

The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has provided guidance on how to provide warnings for lead under the new safe harbor warning regulations in Title 27, California Code of Regulations, sections 25601, et seq. This guidance, provided in response to Grimaldi Law’s request for interpretation, clarifies that businesses may use the term “lead” in a combination warning, i.e., a warning addressing both the cancer and reproductive harm endpoints, as set forth in Section 25603(a)(2)(D) of the new safe harbor warning regulations - notwithstanding the fact that the formal identification for lead as a carcinogen is "lead and lead…