Court Rules Class Action Against Campbell Soup Preempted
A California federal court granted Campbell Soup Co.’s motion to dismiss a putative class action claiming the company “falsely and misleadingly labeled and advertised” one of its soups, ruling that the plaintiff’s claims are expressly preempted by federal law. Brower v. Campbell Soup Co., No. 16-1005 (S.D. Cal., order entered March 21, 2017). The plaintiffs alleged that Campbell’s Chunky Healthy Request Grilled Chicken & Sausage Gumbo was mislabeled and advertised as healthy despite containing artificial trans fat. Additional details about the complaint appear in Issue 602 of this Update.
Campbell contended that the plaintiff’s claims were preempted by the Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA) and the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA), both of which prohibit the sale of products with false or misleading labeling or marketing. Pursuant to both statutes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) inspects and approves product labels. The court agreed, noting that “it is undisputed that FSIS approved Healthy Request Gumbo’s label.” Once a label is approved, the PPIA and FMIA bar a state from deeming a label “false, misleading or otherwise unlawful.”
The court also dismissed both Campbell’s motion and the plaintiff’s cross-motion for sanctions. Campbell’s moved for sanctions contending that numerous courts had held claims similar to the plaintiffs’ preempted under the PPIA and FMIA; however, the plaintiffs relied on the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to argue against preemption, and the court ruled that their arguments were neither frivolous nor legally baseless. On the other hand, the court said, Campbell’s reliance on federal and statutory case law to file a Rule 11 motion for sanctions was not baseless either, dismissing the plaintiff’s cross-motion.
Issue 628
