A California court has reportedly denied a motion to certify a class of Hard Rock Café employees who allege that the restaurant chain wrongly classified them as exempt employees and then forced them to assume the tasks of non-exempt employees without paying them overtime or allowing them to take meal periods and rest breaks, and otherwise provided inaccurate wage statements. In re Hard Rock Café Wage & Hour Cases, No. JCCP 4549 (Cal. Super. Ct., Orange Cty., decided October 3, 2012). According to the restaurant chain’s counsel, the court determined that the putative class of kitchen managers lacked numerosity, the identity and number of class members could not be ascertained, and the named representative could not adequately represent the class. The court also apparently found that individual analysis of each employee’s work activities would be required to decide whether they had been properly classified as exempt. Counsel for named plaintiff…
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A federal multidistrict litigation (MDL) court in California has certified a nationwide class of consumers who purchased a POM Wonderful pomegranate juice product between October 2005 and September 2010 and allege that the company’s health-related benefit claims are false and misleading. In re POM Wonderful LLC Mktg. & Sales Practices Litig., MDL No. 2199 (C.D. Cal., decided September 28, 2012). The suit was filed under California’s False Advertising Law, Unfair Competition Law and Consumers Legal Remedies Act. While POM argued that a nationwide class could not be certified because California law cannot be applied to consumers in other states, the company failed to specifically identify conflicts between the laws of California and other states. According to the court, the company simply cited a Ninth Circuit decision “[p]erhaps relying upon the mistaken assumption that California law cannot be applied to a nationwide class as a matter of law,” and included an exhibit…
The Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) has announced the implementation of new adult cattle traceability rules effective January 1, 2013. TAHC apparently amended its regulations after “unofficially” suspending its brucellosis test requirement for adult cattle at change of ownership. Because cattle no longer receive ear-tags at the time of testing, the updated rule stipulates that “all sexually intact cattle, parturient or post parturient, or 18 months of age and older changing ownership must still be officially identified with Commission approved permanent identification.” “The new traceability rule will help preserve the TAHC’s ability to identify and trace animal movements quickly and effectively, no matter which disease is involved,” stated the agency, which has anticipated that the change will primarily affect beef cattle, “as dairy cattle in Texas have had an even more stringent identification requirement in place since 2008.” The Commission has also supplied a complete list of acceptable identification devices…
The European Court of Auditors has issued a special report finding that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and three other consumer health and safety agencies did not have “adequate” conflict-of-interest procedures in place as of October 2011. After auditing agency activities and comparing them with Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Guidelines, the court evidently concluded that certain conflict-of-interest risks “are embedded in the selected Agencies’ structure (e.g. the same organization is both a management representative and a supplier of services) and in the use of the research performed by the industry.” In particular, the report faulted EFSA’s Management Board where four of the 15 members “have a background (including current involvement) in organizations representing consumers and other interests in the food industry.” It also noted that “the impartiality of EFSA’s work and decision-making might be jeopardized since three of these organizations represented on the Management Board are also represented in the…
A recent study examining the shared neurobiological substrates of obesity and addiction has concluded that “there are several identifiable circuits in the brain, whose dysfunctions uncover real and clinically meaningful parallels between the two disorders.” N.H. Volkow, et al., “Obesity and addiction: neurobiological overlaps,” Obesity Reviews, September 2012. According to the study’s authors, “Drugs of abuse tap into the neuronal mechanisms that modulate the motivation to consume food, thus, it is not surprising that there is an overlap in the neuronal mechanisms implicated in the loss of control and overconsumption of food intake seen in obesity and in the compulsive intake of drugs seen in addiction.” In particular, the study considers brain dopamine (DA) pathways and their role in both obesity and addiction, cautioning that the current debate over “food addiction” often oversimplifies behavioral patterns involving environmental and biological factors. As a result, the authors seek to sidestep the debate by…
Researchers with the Universities of Sheffield and Sussex recently announced plans to build a computer model of the honey bee brain that would eventually pilot “an autonomous flying robot.” According to an October 2, 2012, press release, the “Green Brain” project aims to produce a tiny flying robot able to sense and act like a live bee for applications ranging from mechanical pollination to search and rescue missions. To this end, Green Brain will rely on high-performance desktop computer processors known as GPU accelerators rather than more expensive supercomputer clusters. “NVIDIA’s GPU accelerators are an important part of the project, as they allow us to build faster models than ever before,” said Thomas Nowotny from the University of Sussex’s Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics. “We expect that in many areas of science this technology will eventually replace the classic supercomputers we use today and pave the way for many…
Mission: Readiness, a non-profit organization of senior retired military leaders, has issued a second report claiming that one in four young adults are still “too overweight to enlist.” Titled “Still Too Fat to Fight,” the latest report alleges that U.S. students “consume almost 400 billion calories from junk food sold at schools each year.” It also cites data from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggesting that efforts to improve school nutrition in New York City, Philadelphia and other cities have led to decreased childhood obesity rates in those areas. Building on its 2010 call-to-action, Mission: Readiness is urging schools and governments to consider limiting the sale of competitive foods in campus vending machines and cafeterias. “Removing the junk food from our schools should be part of nationwide comprehensive action that involves parents, schools, and communities in helping students build stronger bodies with less excess…
According to a recent report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists have successfully engineered a transgenic dairy cow that produces milk with decreased levels of β-lactoglobulin (BLG), a major allergen which is not present in human milk. Anower Jabed, et al., “Targeted microRNA expression in dairy cattle directs production of β-lactoglobulin-free, high-casein milk,” PNAS, October 2012. After testing their hypothesis in a mouse model, New Zealand researchers apparently used a technique called RNA interference to effectively silence the gene responsible for expressing the BLG protein in cow’s milk. The resulting transgenic calf reportedly yielded milk with “no detectable BLG protein” but “more than twice the level of the casein proteins that also normally occur in cow’s milk.” “People have long looked into reducing this enigmatic protein, or completely knocking it out, because there has been no definitive function able to be assigned to it. So, we developed…
An Edmonton, Alberta, resident has filed a putative class action against a beef processor with operations in Alberta and Nebraska, alleging that he became severely ill from consuming the company’s beef, which was recalled in September 2012 due to an E. coli outbreak. Harrison v. XL Foods Inc., No. 1203-14727 (Can. Alta. Q.B., filed October 2, 2012). Seeking to certify province-wide and nationwide classes of plaintiffs “who purchased and/or consumed the Recalled Products,” the plaintiff alleges strict liability, breach of the Fair Trading Act, negligence, waiver of tort/disgorgement, and vicarious liability. He requests punitive and actual damages, as well as non-pecuniary general damages, pecuniary damages, disgorgement of revenues, attorney’s fees, costs, and interest. He also seeks a declaration that the recalled products are contaminated. According to news sources, plaintiff Matthew Harrison fell ill after eating allegedly contaminated steak, purchased at a Costco store, at a friend’s house. He was purportedly…
A California resident has filed a putative class action against General Mills, Inc., alleging that its “100% Natural” labeling and advertising for products such as Nature Valley® Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Crunchy Granola Bars are misleading because the products contain ingredients grown from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Rojas v. General Mills, Inc., No. 12-5099 (N.D. Cal., filed October 1, 2012). Contending that the soy, yellow corn flour, soy flour, and soy lecithin in the granola bars are GMO ingredients, the plaintiff does not request that the defendant provide a GMO disclosure; rather, he “only requests Defendant to remove the ‘100% NATURAL’ labeling from its Product.” While the plaintiff’s alleged harm is purely economic, i.e., he did not get the benefit of his bargain, he alleges that GMOs “pose a potential threat to consumers because medical research and scientific studies have yet to determine the long-term health effects of genetically engineered foods.”…
