Products Liability Law Daily Wrap Up, DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING DEFECTS—HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS—S.D.N.Y.: Colgate-Palmolive wins dismissal of consumer’s claims in cleaner injury case, (Mar 6, 2026)

By Pankhuri Bhatnagar, B.A. LL.B.

A consumer failed to plausibly allege that her illness was caused by exposure to the products.

In a case brought against a household cleaning products manufacturer by an Ohio consumer who alleged that she developed a bacterial lung infection after using the cleaners, a federal district court in New York granted the manufacturer’s motion to dismiss. The consumer’s manufacturing defect, design defect, and failure-to-warn theories failed because the manufacturer’s recall notice did not apply to the products she used, there was no proof that her purchased products were similarly contaminated, there were no allegations about frequency of exposure to show causation, and she did not describe how the product’s warnings were deficient (Fuller v. Colgate-Palmolive Co., No. 24-CV-4225 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 3, 2026)).

Background. For more than a decade, an Ohio resident purchased Fabuloso Multi-Purpose Cleaners to clean her home and hair salon. In May 2022, she began experiencing flu-like symptoms and was subsequently admitted to a hospital where she was diagnosed with a pseudomonas aeruginosa lung infection. The cleaning products she used were formulated, manufactured, marketed, and sold by Colgate-Palmolive Company (Colgate or manufacturer). In February 2023, Colgate issued a nationwide recall of approximately 4.9 million bottles of Fabuloso cleaners due to bacterial contamination, including pseudomonas aeruginosa, resulting from its failure to include the intended levels of a preservative during manufacturing. The consumer filed suit, alleging that her illness was the direct and proximate result of Colgate’s intentional concealment and failure to warn users of bacterial contamination, and its failure to timely remove the contaminated product from the market. Her amended complaint pleaded claims for manufacturing defect, design defect, and failure to warn under the Ohio Product Liability Act (OPLA). The manufacturer moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim.

Product defect. To state a manufacturing or design defect claim under the OPLA, a claimant must plausibly allege that the product was defective and that the defect proximately caused the injury. At a minimum, the complaint must allege that the product failed during the claimant’s use. Grange Mut. Cas. Co. v. Optimus Enters., Inc., 2016 WL 3078956 (N.D. Ohio June 1, 2016). The woman failed to plausibly allege that her Colgate cleaners failed during her use and hence did not state a valid claim under O.R.C. § 2307.74–75. Her allegations relied primarily on the company’s 2023 recall of certain Fabuloso products due to bacterial contamination. But the recall notice applied only to products sold after December 16, 2022. Because the consumer alleged that her illness occurred between May and September 2022, her injury could not have been caused by any recalled products. Thus, she could not rely solely on the recall to support her allegation that the products she purchased prior to the recall were also contaminated. She argued that a product does not need to be recalled in order to be defective. While true, she did not allege any facts to show that the recall was underinclusive, that the contamination was more widespread or existed earlier, that she tested her Colgate cleaners and found them to be contaminated, or that pseudomonas aeruginosa was such a rare bacteria that it would be plausible to infer from the subsequent recall that the products she used were similarly contaminated.

The court referred to the analogous case of Bevins v. Colgate-Palmolive Co., 2025 WL 1085695 (E.D. Pa. Apr. 10, 2025) where a woman’s defect claims against Colgate were dismissed because she did not make any non-conclusory allegations about the manufacturing process for or design of the Fabuloso products or offer evidence apart from the recall notice. Even if a defect had been plausibly alleged, the complaint failed to establish proximate causation. Ohio toxic-exposure law requires plaintiffs to allege both exposure to the substance and that the exposure level was sufficient to cause the claimed condition as per Pluck v. BP Oil Pipeline Co., 640 F.3d 671, 677 (6th Cir. 2011). The consumer alleged only that she had used multiple bottles of the cleaners for more than ten years and that she began to feel ill in May 2022. She did not identify which specific cleaners she used during the relevant period, when she used them, or how frequently she was exposed to them, or allege that she used the cleaners immediately before her symptoms worsened. Accordingly, there was no causal relationship between her pre-recall use of the Colgate cleaners and her illness, and the manufacturing and design defect claims were dismissed.

Failure to warn. Under O.R.C. § 2307.76, a failure-to-warn claim requires allegations establishing a duty to warn against reasonably foreseeable risks, breach of that duty, and injury proximately caused by the breach. Fed. Ins. Co. v. Nanoscience Instruments, Inc., 2023 WL 2932282 (S.D. Ohio Apr. 13, 2023). The complaint alleged that the manufacturer knew or should have known about contamination risks yet continued selling the cleaners without warning consumers to prioritize profits, and that the consumer suffered injuries as a result of this failure to warn. The court held that these allegations merely recited the elements of a failure-to-warn claim without supporting facts. The complaint did not describe what warnings accompanied the product, what additional warnings a reasonable manufacturer would have provided, or how any warning deficiency caused the consumer’s injuries. She also failed to allege whether or how the Colgate cleaners presented foreseeable risks requiring a warning in the first place or how any alleged failure to warn caused her injury. Accordingly, this count was also dismissed.

The case is No. 24-CV-4225.

Judge: Abrams, R.

Attorneys: Adam John Kress (Johnson Becker PLLC) for Kellie Ann Fuller. Erik Christopher Dimarco (Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani LLP) for Colgate-Palmolive Co.

Companies: Colgate-Palmolive Co.

Cases: CourtDecisions DesignManufacturingNews HouseholdProductsNews NewYorkNews