The decision in Kwan v. Sanmedica International, 854 F.3d 1088 (9^th Cir. 2017) in April, has occasioned a lot of discussion about the apparent demise of the establishment claim “standard” in California.  What the Kwan decision should have done, but did not, is provoke some hard thinking about what this “standard” is and how we use it.  From the Kwan decision, it is apparent that the Ninth Circuit does not understand where the establishment claim principle came from and what it means.  But its error is understandable, because attorneys and judges have been careless with the principle and arguably have made much more of it than it should be.                                                                                                                                             

Kwan has been accepted as standing for two propositions.  The first, which should be non-controversial and unsurprising, is that in private suits brought under California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL) and Consumer Legal Remedies Act (CLRA), a plaintiff must allege and ultimately prove that the offending advertising claim is false, not merely unsubstantiated.  There has been no serious dispute about this since the California Court of Appeal (Second District) decision in National Council Against Health Fraud, Inc. v. King Bio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 107 Cal. App. 4^th 1336, 133 Cal. Rptr. 2d 207 (2003).  What made Kwan news was that the court also rejected plaintiff’s allegations that defendant’s dietary supplements were “clinically tested to boost [human growth hormone] by a mean of 682%,” is provably false, and in so doing refused to “incorporate Lanham Act provisions into California’s unfair competition and consumer protection law by distinguishing between ‘establishment’ and ‘non-establishment’ claims.”  854 F.3d at 1097.   …
Continue Reading Is It Time to Rethink Establishment Claims?