Tort Reform Group Highlights “Big Food” Cases in “Judicial Hellholes” Report

The American Tort Reform Foundation has published the 2013-2014 issue of
its “Judicial Hellholes” report, placing California, in part for the many lawsuits
against food and beverage companies filed there, at the top of the list of
jurisdictions with “plaintiff-friendly consumer protection laws” and courts
purportedly receptive to such lawsuits.

According to the report, plaintiffs’ lawyers “have filed a surge of consumer
class actions targeting what they have labeled as ‘Big Food’” in California
courts. “Some of these claims are brought by veterans of lawsuits against the
tobacco industry who are looking for the next deep pocket to sue. About a
dozen plaintiffs’ law firms have taken to the courts with gusto, filing about 75
class action lawsuits between them in the past few years. By one count, which
includes filings from additional firms, more than 100 consumer class actions
were filed against food makers in 2012 alone, five times the number filed four
years earlier.”

The report also notes, “Rarely has there been a week in 2013 without a report
of another class action filed against a food maker. In some instances, the
lawyers bringing the cases do not even bother to find new clients—they
recycle the same individuals as lead plaintiffs, over and over again, in lawsuits
involving different manufacturers and products.”

Issue 508