Saying microplastics are likely already in everything humans consume, a Chicago federal judge has dashed a class action lawsuit seeking to force the sellers of Ice Mountain bottled water to pay for selling “100% Natural Spring Water” that contained microplastics.
On Aug. 9, U.S. District Judge Steven Seeger dismissed the lawsuit against BlueTriton Brands, a Stamford, Connecticut-based company that bottles and sells several brands of bottled water, including Ice Mountain.
The lawsuit was filed in Cook County Circuit Court in January by attorneys with the law firm of Todd M. Friedman P.C., of Northbrook. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of named plaintiffs Christine Slowinski, of Schaumburg, and David Hayes, of Bloomingdale.
The lawsuit accuses BlueTriton of allegedly violating Illinois’ consumer fraud law and misleading consumers by selling its Ice Mountain bottled water with labels advertising the water as “100% Natural Spring Water,” when the water actually contains so-called microplastics, or microscopic particles of “different molecules with different structures, shapes, sizes, and polymers.”
The lawsuit asserts people drinking water containing microplastics can have the particles “be transported through the circulatory system and subsequently accumulate in various organs, including the kidney, gut, and liver.”
The lawsuit is one of several filed in recent months by the Friedman attorneys making similar accusations against other sellers of bottled water, including Danone Waters and the Wonderful Company, which sells Fiji brand water.
The Friedman firm has also partnered with Slowinski and Hayes on other consumer fraud lawsuits against food and beverage makes through the years, according to Chicago federal court records, including lawsuits accusing companies of selling products containing preservatives, among others.
In the lawsuit against BlueTriton, the company asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, asserting it was barred by federal law, among other defenses.
In the Aug. 9 decision, Judge Seeger sided with the company. He agreed Slowinski’s and Hayes’ claims were not likely to succeed, as he agreed they are likely barred by the federal Food and Drug Act. That law, Seeger said, empowered federal regulators at the Food and Drug Administration to set standards defining the terms used to sell certain products.
Those defining regulations included one setting the meaning for “spring water.”
“Distilled to its core, the complaint at hand seeks to impose a ‘no microplastics’ requirement for spring water,” Seeger said. “Plaintiffs believe that the water isn’t 100% natural spring water if it contains microplastics.
“But the FDA defined what spring water is. And the definition of spring water makes no mention of teeny-tiny bits and pieces of itty-bitty plastic. The FDA’s standard of identity imposes no requirements at the molecular level. Plaintiffs cannot use state law to tack on additional requirements.”
The judge later added: “The existence of microplastics doesn’t mean that the spring water isn’t spring water.”
Further, the judge noted that so-called microplastics are, “it seems, everywhere.”
And that, he said, defeats the notion that water containing microplastics cannot be considered “natural.”
“If the existence of microplastics means that something is not natural, then nothing is natural,” Seeger wrote.
“… At the end of the day, microplastics are in just about everything. Even the most health-conscious person among us can’t escape the possibility of microplastics. When simply breathing air puts you at risk of inhaling microplastics, it’s unreasonable to assume that your spring water won’t have any microplastics,” the judge said.
The dismissal ordered by Judge Seeger was without prejudice, meaning plaintiffs will be allowed to try to amend the complaint to address the shortcomings identified by the judge. He gave plaintiffs two weeks to amend their complaint.
This article was first published in Cook County Record.
