ALF Urges Supreme Court To Decide Whether Federal Law Precludes Climate Change Damages Suits

State and local governments have filed dozens of damages suits in state courts around the United States collectively seeking billions of dollars  from major oil and gas producers for the alleged local effects of global warming and climate change.  The potentially disastrous national and international ramifications of allowing these proliferating suits to proceed are enormously […]

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ALF Urges 4th Circuit To Enforce Electronic Ticket Arbitration Agreements

Electronic tickets, purchased online for admission to sports, entertainment, and many other types of events, have become ubiquitous. When small groups, such as friends or family, plan to attend an event together, it is customary for one individual to purchase tickets for the group, download them to and store them on his or her mobile

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ALF/WLF Brief Urges Full 11th Circuit To Enforce Federal Preemption of Pesticide Failure-To-Warn Claims

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has granted rehearing en banc in Carson v. Monsanto Co., No. 21-10994, one of thousands of state-law personal injury suits alleging that Monsanto, the manufacturer of Roundup herbicide, failed to provide a label warning that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, can cause cancer. The U.S. Environmental

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ALF Brief Argues Federal Law Preempts California Ban On Sale Of USDA-Approved Poultry Product

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) food and labeling standards define foie gras as duck or goose liver “obtained exclusively from specially fed and fattened geese and ducks.”  This centuries-old process, long used in France , involves “force feeding” geese and ducks to enlarge their livers. It is the only way to produce genuine foie gras. California,

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Justices Should Give Feds’ Roundup Amicus Little Weight

Law360 has published my sharply critical Expert Analysis of the amicus brief that the U.S. Solicitor General recently submitted to the Supreme Court in Monsanto Co. v. Hardeman, No. 21-241. My analysis explains that – “From the perspective of product liability defense attorneys, the brief from the solicitor general is a transparently partisan, short-sighted effort to

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It’s Time For The Supreme Court To Revisit FIFRA Preemption

More than two decades ago, I stood before the Justices of the California Supreme Court and succeeded in persuading them that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) expressly preempts pesticide-related failure to warn claims. See Etcheverry v. Tri-Ag Service, Inc., 22 Cal.4th 316 (Cal. 2000).  Five years later, in Bates v. Dow AgroSciences,

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ALF Urges Supreme Court To Clarify Federal Preemption Of Pesticide Failure-To-Warn Suits

I today filed on behalf of the Atlantic Legal Foundation a petition-stage amicus brief supporting Petitioner Monsanto Company in Monsanto Co. v. Hardeman, No. 21-241. The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) vests the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with exclusive authority to regulate the content of pesticide product labeling. FIFRA accomplishes this by expressly

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Amicus Letter Explains That Federal Law Preempts Roundup® Product Liability Suit

The Atlantic Legal Foundation has submitted an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) letter urging the California Supreme Court to grant the petition for review filed on August 31, 2020 by Monsanto Company in Johnson v. Monsanto, a bellwether case in which a former school groundskeeper claims he developed a form of cancer as a result

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California Court’s Preemption Ruling Clashes with EPA No-Cancer-Warning Determination for Roundup® Labeling

The following case analysis was published in the Washington Legal Foundation’s Legal Pulse blog on August 4, 2020. In the WLF Legal Pulse post EPA Finally Flexes Some Preemption Muscle, I explained that last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) repudiated California’s attempt, under the State’s Proposition 65 right-to-know law, to require manufacturers of glyphosate weed-control products

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California Can’t Usurp USEPA’s Authority Over Roundup® Labeling

California’s Attorney General just doesn’t get it. Maybe he’s been watching too many of those slick infomercials trolling for Roundup® “victims.” In 1972 Congress enacted a law—the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)—that gives the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sole and exclusive authority to regulate the content of pesticide product labeling. FIFRA vests EPA

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