Looking to replicate the legal playbook that led tobacco companies to hand over hundreds of billions of dollars decades earlier, the city of San Francisco has partnered with some of America’s most prominent trial lawyers now to take aim at food producers, saying they should be made to pay for allegedly “sickening” Americans with so-called “ultra processed foods.”
On Dec. 2, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu announced the city and county of San Francisco was filing the lawsuit in San Francisco County Superior Court.
The lawsuit was filed “on behalf of the people of the state of California.”
Chiu’s office is joined in the action by prominent plaintiffs’ lawyers, including those from the firms of Morgan & Morgan, of Orlando, Florida; DiCello Levitt, of Chicago, Cleveland, Ohio, and Birmingham, Alabama; and Andrus Anderson, of San Francisco.
The lawsuit was filed against some of the biggest food makers and sellers in the U.S.
Defendants named in the legal action include the Kraft Heinz Company; Mondelez International; Post Holdings Inc.; Coca-Cola Company; Pepsico; General Mills; Nestle USA; Kellanova; WK Kellogg Co.; Mars Inc.; and Conagra Brands, among others.
The lawsuit accuses the “Big Food” companies of worsening health problems in the U.S. by allegedly using “deceitful tactics” to persuade people – and particularly children and people in Black and Latino communities – to consume large quantities of “ultra processed” food items, which allegedly contain minimal nutrition value.
Those food choices then led to a worsening of health problems among Americans, according to the lawsuit, including diabetes, obesity, and liver and kidney disease, among other maladies.
The lawsuit asserts the marketing techniques employed by the food companies to promote “ultra processed foods” (UPF) was akin to those used by tobacco companies for decades to promote the use of cigarettes.
“Big Food did all this with the singular goal of making UPF a staple of the American diet, regardless of the health and societal damage that they knew UPF would cause,” San Francisco and the trial lawyers wrote in the complaint.
The complaint asserts food companies have known of the alleged harmful effects of their products since at least the 1990s.
The lawsuit claims the alleged “deceitful” marketing of “ultra processed foods” has led to “addictions” that has translated into a public health crisis that has strained public resources. So, they say, “Big Food” must pay to compensate for the alleged damage.
San Francisco’s complaint does not specify what the ultimate payment demands may be. It only asks the court to award sums that would “abate the public nuisance” allegedly caused by the food companies’ practices and awards for “statewide civil penalties” under California state law.
However, the city’s lawsuit may be just the tip of the spear in the legal attack on the food companies.
In announcing the lawsuit, the trial lawyers made no secret of their intent to widen the litigation to potentially include state and local governments throughout the U.S., in a bid to use public health claims to extract potentially tens of billions of dollars or more from “Big Food” just as trial lawyers partnered with state and local governments to extract many billions of dollars from “Big Tobacco” in decades past.
In a statement, trial lawyer Jennie Lee Anderson, of the Andrus Anderson firm, said the lawsuit is intended to help “establish a legal framework that other cities can use to safeguard their communities,” likely through lawsuits of their own, in partnership with still more trial lawyers.
Should the lawsuits result in settlements or judgments in their favor, trial lawyers could then also be in line for a bonanza in fees worth billions of dollars, as well, as they could potentially claim up to a third of whatever is ultimately paid out, based on past arrangements.
Trial lawyers, for instance, claimed more than $13 billion under the master tobacco settlement in 1998. Adjusted for inflation, that payout would now be worth about double that amount, or $25.9 billion.
Tobacco companies are estimated to have paid a total of more than $368 billion in the past 25 years to settle those lawsuits.
In 1998, Americans spent about $51 billion on tobacco products, or about $100 billion adjusted for inflation.
According to federal estimates, Americans spend more than $1 trillion each year on food purchased to be consumed a home, and an additional $1 trillion on food away from home.
The lawsuit and its demands come as just the latest in a widening legal and regulatory attack on food companies.
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, under the oversight of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy took up the task of attempting to define the term “ultra processed food” for regulatory purposes. That was met with a wave of comments and concerns from the food industry over how consumer choice and the nation’s food supply could be harmed by stiffened regulations and rules.
And earlier this year, a lawsuit brought by Morgan & Morgan – one of the firms now partnering with San Francisco – leveling many of the same allegations in San Francisco’s lawsuit was tossed by a judge in Philadelphia.
That lawsuit was brought on behalf of a man who claimed his diet, rich in UPFs, had been “forced” on him by the food industry, leading him to develop diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease at the age of 16.
“By naming over 100 brands, Plaintiff has put thousands of products at issue without any additional information to identify what caused his harm,” the Pennsylvania judge wrote in his late August ruling.
However, the loss appears to have not slowed Morgan & Morgan or many other plaintiffs’ firms across the country, many of whom have begun soliciting clients to join them for more lawsuits seeking big payouts from “Big Food.”
In announcing the city of San Francisco’s lawsuit, City Attorney Chiu appeared to mimic the legally disputed claims that the food industry has allegedly all but forced consumers to eat UPFs.
“They took food and made it unrecognizable and harmful to the human body,” Chiu said.
“We must be clear that this is not about consumers making better choices. Recent surveys show Americans want to avoid ultra-processed foods, but we are inundated by them. These companies engineered a public health crisis, they profited handsomely, and now they need to take responsibility for the harm they have caused.”
In response to the lawsuit, the food makers through their trade association, the Consumer Brands Association, released a statement:
“The makers of America’s trusted household brands support Americans in making healthier choices and enhancing product transparency. That’s why food and beverage manufacturers continue to introduce new product options that include increased protein and fiber, reduced sugars and sodium, and no synthetic color additives,” said Sarah Gallo, the Consumer Brands Association’s Senior Vice President of Product Policy.
“There is currently no agreed upon scientific definition of ultra-processed foods and attempting to classify foods as unhealthy simply because they are processed, or demonizing food by ignoring its full nutrient content, misleads consumers and exacerbates health disparities.
“Companies adhere to the rigorous evidence-based safety standards established by the FDA to deliver safe, affordable and convenient products that consumers depend on every day. Americans deserve facts based on sound science in order to make the best choices for their health.”
In blog posts published in 2024, the Consumer Brands Association directly assailed the claims against “ultra processed foods,” such as those laid out in the San Francisco and Pennsylvania lawsuits.
In the post, attributed to Megan Kastner, a Consumer Brands Association policy manager for public policy, the Consumer Brands Association said such claims are based on shaky science and are intended to “demonize certain foods, and, therefore, the food choices consumers either want to make or need to make for their personal lifestyle.”
“The assertions — made in what largely feels like an effort to weigh in on the topic du jour — are so ridiculous, lacking not only in common sense but also in understanding and empathy for the variety of dietary needs many consumers face and budgets they’re balancing,” Kastner wrote.
She added such claims and attacks on the nation’s food supply fall “short of considering what processing is or how it enables continued access to affordable, nutritional, shelf-stable items.
“Nor does it raise the credible concerns of what would happen if access to processed foods is limited, including decreased diet quality, increased risk of food-borne illness, greater food waste, stigmatization of critical foods such as fortified grains, plant-based proteins or infant formula and exacerbated health disparities,” Kastner wrote.
The food companies have not yet responded to the San Francisco lawsuit in court.
