A U.S. District Court recently barred enforcement of California's Proposition 65 warning requirement on the First Amendment ground of "compelled speech."
A U.S. District Court recently barred enforcement of
California's Proposition 65 warning requirement on the First
Amendment ground of "compelled speech." Proposition 65
requires businesses to provide warnings to consumers before
exposing them to over 900 chemicals linked to cancer or reproductive
toxicity. Although the State of California will almost certainly
appeal the decision, National Association of Wheat Growers et
al., v. Xavier Becerra1 could be a turning point for
Proposition 65 and set the stage for further challenges to consumer
product warning labels on First Amendment grounds.
In the recent decision, Judge William Shubb recognized
Proposition 65 warning labels as a form of compelled speech. The
case stems from warning labels for products containing glyphosate,
a widely used herbicide. Following the International Agency for
Research on Cancer's classification of glyphosate as
"probably carcinogenic," the State recognized glyphosate
as a chemical "known
We operate a free-to-view policy, asking only that you register in order to read all of our content. Please login or register to view the rest of this article.
