The Ninth Circuit filed a preemption opinion the other day that should help prevent the “foodification” of medical device litigation. That made-up word refers to the wasteful food-related class action litigation that has somewhat thrived in California. The template is familiar: Opportunistic plaintiffs’ lawyers find some aspect of food labeling that they claim is misleading—e.g., that a product is “wholesome” or “natural”—and they recruit a plaintiff to say that he or she would not have purchased the food or would have paid less for it had truth been told.
