Purported class actions on behalf of people who haven't
really suffered any injury are one of the banes of our
existence. While not limited to California or courts in the
Ninth Circuit, some of the worst (most of which we haven't
covered because they are adverse non-drug/device cases) decisions
certainly hail from there.
Recently, however the Ninth Circuit, clipped no-injury
plaintiffs' wings in McGee v. S-L Snacks
National, 982 F.3d 700 (9th Cir. 2020). The claims
involved the presence, in food, of partially hydrogenated oil
(“PHO”) – which the FDA removed from its
“generally recognized as safe” list in 2015, but
apparently has not concluded is actually a health risk.
Congress then weighed in on the side of the continued availability
of PHO. Id. at 703 n.1.
