No Public Benefit Conferred By Misleading Proposition 65 Temporary Warnings, And 998 Offer Releases Were Overbroad.
In Council for Education and Research on Toxics v. Starbucks Corporation, Case Nos. B309227 et al. (2d Dist., Div. 4 Oct. 26, 2022) (published), defendants properly won a summary judgment in a Proposition 65 case when new regulations debunked the idea that coffee roasting presented health risks which had to be disclosed. The trial court denied plaintiff’s request for private attorney fees because any temporary warnings did not confer a public benefit given that the warnings were misleading and unnecessarily. The lower court also granted some of the defendants about $700,000 in attorney’s fees based on unaccepted CCP 998 offers. The appellate court affirmed the fee denial, but reversed the 998 fees awards because the requested releases were overbroad in seeking release of claims over and beyond those which were the subject of the lawsuit (relying on the Ignacio and Chen decisions in so doing).
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