Legal Blog

Proposition 65 private enforcers have wasted no time in 2014, serving 95 notices of violation so far this year -- that's over three per business day.  Most of the notices target well-known issues like DEHP in fashion accessories, lead in apparel and lead in dietary supplements.  Food is the subject of several notices served by the Center for Environmental Health and the Council for Education and Research on Toxics; these entities are targeting alleged exposures to lead and acrylamide in baby food, ginger, cookies, licorice and baking mixes.  Shefa LMV, Crystal Gerard and the Center for Environmental Health have served…

With geographically extensive distribution systems, companies often struggle with how to provide Proposition 65 warnings on California-bound products without having to label all products distributed nationally or globally.  It's costly and burdensome, and sometimes impossible, to label only products intended to be sold in California.  But labeling all products no matter where they are bound raises another concern: that non-California consumers, unused to seeing these warnings, will reject a product simply because it bears a Prop 65 warning.  A recent news item coming out of Tennessee initially would suggest that those fears are well-founded but a closer look tells a…

Effective October 1, 2013, the Safer Consumer Products Regulations establish a complex process by which "responsible entities" (manufacturers, importers, retailers and assemblers) will be required to analyze chemicals of concern in specified consumer products -- which DTSC will call "Priority Products" -- to determine whether safer alternatives exist.  The outcome of these alternatives analyses will determine what regulatory response DTSC will impose on the Priority Product or the selected safer alternative; regulatory responses range from product information requirements (think Proposition 65 Plus) to end-of-life management requirements, to sales bans.  And, if this process weren't complex enough, watch out:  DTSC's "Informational"…