As a California appellate court once stated, and many businesses find out to their dismay, Proposition 65’s enforcement procedures make “the instigation of Proposition 65 litigation easy—and almost absurdly easy at the pleading stage and pretrial stages.” Consumer Defense Group
Editor’s Note: Since our original post, there have been two significant changes:
The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has adopted amendments to its 2016 Proposition 65 warning regulations. These amendments address issues that arose regarding how manufacturers and distributors communicate with retailers and other downstream businesses about the
Editor’s Note: Not much has changed since our original post regarding civil penalties. Unfortunately, Prop 65 enforcers are still out attempting to collect vast amounts of civil penalties (and attorney’s fees) in private enforcement actions.
The obvious concern for many
Editor’s Note: On August 30, 2018, OEHHA’s amendments to the Proposition 65 clear and reasonable warning regulations became effective. The amendments bring two major changes:
Editor’s Note: The way that chemicals get added to the list has not changed; however, the list of Prop 65 chemicals has. Here are some recently added chemicals that may be found in consumer products:
Editor’s Note: This post has been updated to reflect 2018 revisions to the Prop 65 regulations, which for the first time allocated responsibility for compliance within the supply chain. These revisions place the primary responsibility for compliance on manufacturers, distributors
Nearly five years ago, we started publishing our first serial, The mysterious world of Prop 65. Although we knew we struck gold with the brilliant series title, we could not have contemplated that these would become our most
On June 3, 2019, the California Office of Administrative Law approved a regulation adopted by the California Environmental Office of Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) exempting chemicals in coffee from Prop 65’s warning requirement. The regulation, which has an effective date of October 1, 2019, provides:
Exposures to chemicals in coffee, listed on or before March 15, 2019 as known to the state to cause cancer, that are created by and inherent in the processes of roasting coffee beans or brewing coffee do not pose a significant risk of cancer.
While the adoption of the regulation would seem to end the ongoing controversy about whether Prop 65 warnings are required for acrylamide in coffee, and to be very good news for those who make and sell coffee, much dust remains to settle.
It’s been about six months since the new Prop 65 regulations allocated the primary responsibility for providing warnings to suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and importers, while limiting retailers’ responsibility to limited, specified circumstances. Many wondered what impact these new regulations would have on the enforcement of Prop 65 against retailers. Six months in, the answer still isn’t clear.