Master Baby Food Lawsuit Filed in MDL Outlines How Toxic Metals Caused Autism, ADHD in Children

Attorneys representing families pursuing toxic baby food lawsuits throughout the federal court system have filed a Master Complaint, which identifies specific products found to be contaminated with heavy metals, and outlines how the baby food caused children to develop autism, ADHD and other injuries.

The Master Complaint will help simplify the filing of future claims and streamline pretrial proceedings in the federal Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) established for complaints brought against Beech-Nut, Gerber, Hain, Nurture and other products, which have been sold in recent years with toxic levels of lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury.

The litigation first emerged in April 2021, after a U.S. Congressional report highlighted internal documents and testing results regarding the baby food heavy metal contamination, finding some products sold by several major manufacturers contained more than 91 times the maximum level of arsenic allowed in bottled water; 177 times the allowable levels of lead, 69 times the limits on cadmium, and five times the levels of allowable mercury.

Despite calls from health experts and regulators for manufacturers to entirely remove the contaminants from their products, subsequent testing has found that toxic heavy metals in baby food remain a pervasive problem, with a report published last year finding that popular brands sold by Gerber, Plum Organics, Sprout, Walmart and others still having potentially dangerous levels.

Nearly 30 such baby food lawsuits have already been filed by families nationwide, each raising similar allegations that children developed autism or ADHD after exposure to the toxic metals, indicating that manufacturers played on the parents’ trust that products would be safe, while concealing the levels of toxic elements present for years.

Given common questions of fact and law raised in the individual complaints, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) established a toxic baby food MDL in April 2024, which centralized complaints broughout in U.S. District Courts nationwide in the Northern District of California, where U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley will preside over coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

Direct Filing of Toxic Baby Food Lawsuits

Anticipating that the litigation will continue to grow rapidly over the next year, both plaintiffs and defendants filed statements in support of direct filing of baby food autism and ADHD lawsuits with the MDL court last month, indicating that the process will avoid delays associated with transfer claims for different federal courts, and allow the court to coordinate responses to pre-trial motions raised regarding allegations that are repeated throughout the lawsuits.

On July 15, plaintiffs filed a proposed Master Complaint form (PDF), which outlines the allegations that can be adopted by individual plaintiffs, explaining the underlying basis for the claims and how the toxic metals in baby food caused autism and ADHD in children of families pursuing financial compensation.

The baby food lawsuit Master Complaint lists numerous products affected by the lawsuit distributed by four major manufacturers:

• Beech-Nut
• Gerber
• Hain Products
• Nurture Products

In complex product liability lawsuits, where large numbers of individuals are pursing similar claims and allegations, it is common for the Court to approve a Master and Short Form Complaint, where plaintiffs can then file future lawsuits through an abbreviated form, where they adopt relevant allegations. The process also helps the parties identify common allegations in different groups of claims, and facilitates the court ruling on pretrial motions.

Baby Food Lawsuit Bellwether Trials Expected

As part of the coordinated management of the litigation, it is expected that Judge Corley will establish a “bellwether” process where a small group of representative claims will be prepared for early trial dates to help gauge how juries may respond to certain evidence and testimony that will be presented throughout other cases.

Part of that process involves the gathering of documents relating to baby food autism and ADHD risks, marketing and warnings, known as the discovery process. However it is expected that the defendants will file motions to dismiss some or all portions of the baby food lawsuits under various legal arguments before those bellwether trials cases can begin, or even be selected.

In a scheduling order (PDF) issued last month, Judge Corley indicated that after the master baby food lawsuit is filed, defendants have until September 16 to file any motions to dismiss the claims. Plaintiffs will then have until October 28 to respond, and the manufacturers’ reply briefs will be due by November 18. The court will then schedule a hearing to consider the early motions.

Unless the manufacturers are able to dismiss the litigation, the court will likely move forward with the bellwether plan to set individual claims for early trial dates. However, before the first federal lawsuits are ready to go before a jury, it is expected that the first claim to go to trial will be a toxic baby food lawsuit filed in California state court, which is scheduled to begin on January 21, 2025.