Preparing For and Defending Consumer Fraud Product Labeling Class Actions

Consumer fraud product labeling class actions have dramatically increased-in fact, more than doubled-in recent years. Your company should be prepared for a lawsuit and know how to defend it.

TOPICS COVERED

• The statistics behind the nationwide snowballing trend of consumer fraud product labeling class actions
• Why consumer goods companies should anticipate product labeling lawsuits
• How to defend product labeling consumer fraud lawsuits from both a liability and class certification perspective
• Recognizing the monetary and reputational exposure, along with injunctions mandating changes to national ad campaigns
• The litigation lightning rod of “natural” product labeling
• The FDA, F TC and USDA: how do government regulations and warning letters affect companies’ decision-making
• Learn how to minimize risks, manage costs & burdens and maximize the utility of electronic discovery in these class action

Join us for a special lunch prepared and presented by Chef Marcus Lepke, owner and chef of European Epicurean. Chef Marcus has appeared on the Food Network’s Chopped!

PANELISTS

With over a decade of experience in class action defense work, Kristen E. Polovoy serves as of counsel at Montgomery McCracken and is a member of its Class Action Defense Practice Group. She serves as chairperson of the Class Action Practice Committee of the Camden County Bar Association in New Jersey. Ms. Polovoy has published articles and has presented at continuing legal education seminars involving consumer fraud class action issues, including two national webinars in November 2012 regarding product labeling consumer fraud class actions. She was recently quoted in articles about food labeling consumer fraud class action trends on the front page of the Sunday, August 19, 2012 New York Times and in the August 20, 2012 edition of Corporate Counsel. Her most recently authored article appears in the October 29, 2012 edition of New Jersey Law Journal (“Wrapping the Class Action Label Around Food Packaging Claims”).

Julie Hofmann Chelius is a partner in the Litigation Department at Montgomery McCracken. Ms. Chelius’s practice focuses on the defense of product liability claims, including claims involving products subject to regulation by the FDA and other governmental agencies. She has advised and defended clients in cases involving medical devices and pharmaceuticals, settlement trusts, fire and safety products, wine distribution, and construction materials in class action, multidistrict and other complex litigation. She has presented Continuing Legal Education programs on subjects including the food labeling requirements of the FDA and other governmental agencies, the recent wave of “natural” label litigation, crisis-related business preparedness, and the protection of sensitive internal company communications.

Michael B. Hayes is a founding co-chair of the E-Discovery Group at Montgomery McCracken and a partner in the firm’s Litigation Department. Over the course of the past decade Mr. Hayes has provided representation and consultative services to various business entities including the development of defensible document retention and destruction plans, data-mapping, legal hold policies and procedures, and every phase of discovery planning, coordination and execution. Mr. Hayes is also an experienced commercial litigator and takes a decidedly pragmatic approach to difficult electronic discovery issues confronting his clients. A former law clerk in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Mr. Hayes enjoys the study of law and is a frequent presenter, author and commentator on important electronic discovery and legal ethics/professional responsibility issues.

Please RSVP to Stephanie Redding by January 8th at 215-772-7260 or events@mmwr.com. Please place Product Labeling CLE in the subject line.

123 South Broad St.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
United States

CLE Credits : 2 PA/NJ/DE CLE Credits (pending approval)