Slack Fill Litigation: Defining Excess Air In Packaging

Every consumer has experienced it: that moment when you open a product, whether it's a box of candy or a container of supplements, and find that the contents occupy far less volume than the container's size suggests.

This frequent source of consumer frustration—the excess air or empty space known as "slack fill"—is the dividing line between lawful packaging and a potential class action lawsuit. While some slack fill performs a critical protective function, nonfunctional empty space fuels the current wave of litigation.

"Slack fill," defined as the difference between a product container's capacity and the actual volume of the product it contains, has become a consistent focus in consumer class action litigation. These lawsuits frequently allege that excessive empty space creates a container that misleads the reasonable consumer regarding the product quantity. Legal analysis centers on whether one of the federally recognized functional safe harbors under the Federa