You Didn’t Tell Us About the PFAS in That Product!

The Consumer Class Action lawsuit brought against Coca-Cola several months ago is another one of the “tip of the PFAS iceberg” cases I believe we will see filed. That is if Plaintiff firms are paying attention.
 
In the Simply Orange Juice case, the fact that the product was advertised as “All Natural” is cited as a deceptive practice however, even absent the “All Natural” claim by the defendant, Plaintiffs claims would still have merit. Failing to tell consumers that a product contained poison, even an alcoholic beverage, would constitute deceptive marketing (deception by omission) at minimum.

The reason I believe the Simply Orange Juice case is just the tip of an iceberg (if Plaintiff firms are paying attention) is simple; most bottled drinks are primarily water. Many and in some cases, most bottlers of consumer beverage source their water from public supplies, including bottled water. The vast number of public water supplies (the number keeps growing) recently found to be contaminated with PFAS, it is virtually impossible to believe that much of this contaminated water somehow failed to make it into bottle consumer products. Nothing the product maker does in the bottling process removes the PFAS.
 
Have you ever seen “PFAS” listed on the label of any bottled beverage? I haven’t!

Identifying these potential cases is within the reach of any law firm if they have the required knowledge. One of the misconceptions that might exist is that most bottled beverages come from big national bottlers, this is not the case. Many bottled beverages are regional and only made and sold in a single State or in some cases only part of a single State.

This means that your firm may very well be in a State where there are bottlers putting beverages on the market that contain dangerous levels of PFAS and you can almost be certain PFAS is not listed on the label. 

One of the topics we will cover at our September 22nd-24th PFAS Summit in Fort Lauderdale is:

1.    How to source data to identify contaminated water sources.
2.    How to identify consumer beverage companies that used that water in their products. 
3.    What products those bottlers made with this water. 
4.    How to develop the evidence that will show how long the water was likely contaminated and thus how long that defendant sold these products via “deceptive marketing practices”.

Register and Book your room today for our September Litigation Updates event!

Book your room today: http://bookings.ihotelier.com/bookings.jsp?groupID=3956304&hotelID=15542