* Violating §1770(a)(5,7,9) of California's Consumer Legal Remedies Act, which is effectively a false advertising law.
* Public nuisance
* Express warranty violation (again, basically "this product doesn't do what you told me it would do")
* Strict liability claims for environment damage (as far as I can make it out)
* Negligence claims for the above as well.
The first and third claims are really, really hard to substantiate because the plaintiffs are arguing on the basis that the claim of "recyclable" should be interpreted as "actually recycled in practice" as opposed to the definition of "recyclable" that appears in regulation... I can't see a judge buying that. I imagine the last two claims will fail due to lack of direct harm--I'm not intimately familiar with California law here, but they're not citing any particular law or precedent to establish why they have standing to sue on the basis of only general public harm. Public nuisance is the only claim I could see standing, but even then, the rather indirect nature is going to make this difficult to sustain.
In short, this appears to me to be more of a "we're suing them to make a statement" kind of case than a "we're suing them because we actually have a legal claim" kind.
* Violating §1770(a)(5,7,9) of California's Consumer Legal Remedies Act, which is effectively a false advertising law.
* Public nuisance
* Express warranty violation (again, basically "this product doesn't do what you told me it would do")
* Strict liability claims for environment damage (as far as I can make it out)
* Negligence claims for the above as well.
The first and third claims are really, really hard to substantiate because the plaintiffs are arguing on the basis that the claim of "recyclable" should be interpreted as "actually recycled in practice" as opposed to the definition of "recyclable" that appears in regulation... I can't see a judge buying that. I imagine the last two claims will fail due to lack of direct harm--I'm not intimately familiar with California law here, but they're not citing any particular law or precedent to establish why they have standing to sue on the basis of only general public harm. Public nuisance is the only claim I could see standing, but even then, the rather indirect nature is going to make this difficult to sustain.
In short, this appears to me to be more of a "we're suing them to make a statement" kind of case than a "we're suing them because we actually have a legal claim" kind.