The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued three noteworthy decisions holding that courts may consider information on the back or side of consumer product labels to clarify any ambiguous language on the front labels in considering whether consumer protection claims are plausibly alleged at the pleading stage: McGinity v. The Procter & Gamble Co., 69 F.4th 1093 (9th Cir. 2023);1 Steinberg v. Icelandic Provisions, Inc., No. 22-15287 (9th Cir. 2023); and Robles v. GOJO Indus., Inc., No. 22-55627 (9th Cir. 2023) ("Robles fails to state a claim because she does not plausibly allege that the front label is literally false or that the front label, as clarified by the back label, is false or misleading"). In each of the foregoing cases, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of consumer protection claims for failure to state a claim. Specifically, plaintiffs failed to state a plausible claim that a reasonable consumer would be misled by information on the front of the product label in light of clarifying information contained on the back product label.
District courts within the Ninth Circuit have taken note. Just this month, three California district courts entered orders granting motions to dismiss consumer protection claims based on consideration of information on the entirety of the products' labels.
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