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3rd Circuit Mulls Pre-emption of Class Action Over Snapple's Nutrition Claims
The Legal Intelligencer
June 25, 2009
A panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appears likely to revive a consumer fraud suit that accuses the popular Snapple line of beverages of misleading the public by proclaiming it was "All Natural" even though it was sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, or HFCS -- an ingredient the plaintiffs' lawyers have labeled "synthesized" and "unnatural."
In a series of pointed questions from all three judges during a lively hour-long argument Wednesday at the Newark, N.J., federal courthouse, there seemed to be strong hints that the case would become part of a recent trend in the courts to allow such consumer or products liability suits -- and to reject the arguments of manufacturers who contend that the private suits risk havoc by conflicting with or frustrating federal regulations.
A lower court judge had tossed the Snapple case in June 2007, concluding that such state-law consumer claims were pre-empted by the Food and Drug Administration's labeling regulations.
"FDA regulations so thoroughly occupy the field of the beverage labeling at issue in this case that it would be unreasonable to infer that Congress intended states to supplement this area," U.S. District Judge Mary L. Cooper of the District of New Jersey wrote in Holk v. Snapple Beverage Corp.
The case is being closely watched by advocates on both sides of the pre-emption question. An amicus brief supporting the plaintiffs was filed by Public Citizen and the Center for Science in the Public Interest; and in support of Snapple, an amicus brief was filed by the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the American Beverage Association and the Corn Refiners Association.
It is also being closely watched as a test case on the increasingly controversial issue of HFCS. As plaintiffs attorney Daniel R. Lapinski of Wilentz Goldman & Spitzer in Woodbridge, N.J., said Wednesday, "We're arguing that the ingredient itself is an unnatural ingredient."
HFCS is made from cornstarch in a process called enzymolysis that converts its long-molecule structure into shorter glucose and fructose molecules. Nutrition experts have in recent years targeted HFCS as a leading cause of obesity.
Snapple recently announced that it would no longer use HFCS as a sweetener, but that decision did not moot the case. If the suit were revived, it would be pursued on behalf of a class of consumers seeking damages for Snapple's alleged unjust enrichment and fraud on the public during the time that the "All Natural" claim was made and HFCS was used.
In the year since Cooper's ruling, the jurisprudence on federal pre-emption of state law claims has taken a sharp turn.
First came the decision by the 3rd Circuit in Fellner v. Tri-Union Seafoods that revived a class action suit against the manufacturer of Chicken-of-the-Sea brand tuna brought by consumers who say they were never warned that excessive consumption could lead to mercury poisoning.
In Fellner, Senior 3rd Circuit Judge Walter K. Stapleton concluded that the suit does not conflict with the FDA's regulatory scheme for the risks posed by mercury in fish "because the FDA simply has not regulated the matter."
