Health Law Daily Wrap Up, LABELING AND PACKAGING (FOOD, DRUGS & MEDICAL DEVICES)—N.D. Cal.: Baby food MDL is dismissed for lack of federal jurisdiction, (Oct 15, 2026)

By Donielle Tigay Stutland, J.D.

A negligence-per-se claim premised on alleged federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act adulteration and misbranding violations does not present a substantial federal question.

In a multidistrict litigation involving alleged adulteration and misbranding of baby food, the federal district court in California dismissed the suit for lack of federal question subject matter jurisdiction. Despite the parties’ written submissions in which all agreed the complaint presents a sufficient federal question, the court rejected the consumers’ argument that this negligence-per-se claim falls within a “special and small category” of state-law claims that arise under federal law (In re: Baby Food Products Liability Litigation, No. 24-md-03101-JSC (N.D. Cal. Oct. 13, 2026)).

State law claims. The court determined that the complaint pleads only state law claims. The court indicated that Count VIII, a negligence-per-se claim, is premised on violations of the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDC Act). Section 342 defines “adulterated food.” Section 343 defines when a food is “misbranded.”

The court rejected the claimants’ argument that this negligence-per-se claim falls within a “special and small category” of state-law claims that arise under federal law for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 1331 “because federal law is ‘a necessary element of the ... claim for relief.’” Under this narrow exception, federal jurisdiction over a state-law claim exists when a federal issue is (1) necessarily raised, (2) actually disputed, (3) substantial, and (4) capable of resolution in federal court without disrupting the federal-state balance approved by Congress. The court followed City of Oakland v. BP PLC, 969 F.3d 895, 904 (9th Cir. 2020), and indicated that all four requirements must be met.

Substantial issue. Here, the court found issue with the third factor—whether the federal issue is “substantial” in that it “focuses on the importance of a federal issue to the federal system as a whole.” Although the claimants alleged that the negligence-per-se claim poses such a substantial question because the court will have to interpret section 342(a)(1) of the FDC Act which provides that a food is adulterated if it contains a “poisonous or deleterious substance which may render it injurious to health,” and pursuant to section 343, the claim presents the question of whether the manufacturers’ baby food labeling is “false or misleading,” the court disagreed. The court rejected the claimants’ argument that “Count VII requires construction of statutory terms that govern food manufacturers nationwide” and thus presents a federal issue sufficient to confer federal question jurisdiction.

The court pointed to Merrell Dow Pharms. Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U.S. 804 (1986), in which the United States Supreme Court held that the negligence claim alleging an FDC Act misbranding violation did not support federal question jurisdiction. The court also stressed that it is undisputed that the FDC Act does not contain a private right of action. Further, the court detailed that in Merrell Dow, the Court specifically rejected the manufacturer’s argument “that there is a powerful federal interest in seeing that the federal statute is given uniform interpretations, and that federal review is the best way of insuring such uniformity.”

The parties next cited the subsequent case of Grable & Sons Metal Products, Inc. v. Darue Engineering & Mfg., 545 U.S. 308 (2005), as clarification that the absence of a private right of action in the incorporated federal statute is not dispositive of the substantial federal question issue. However, the court read Grable to reaffirm Merrell Dow’s holding that state law negligence claims premised on the FDC Act do not raise a substantial federal issue sufficient to confer federal question jurisdiction. The court reasoned that the Grable Court concluded Merrell Dow’s analysis “fits within the framework of examining the importance of having a federal forum for the issue, and the consistency of such a forum with Congress’s intended division of labor between state and federal courts.”

The court read Merrell Dow, and Grable as having considered “essentially these very state-law claims and concluded they do not present a federal question.” The court dismissed the case for lack of federal subject matter jurisdiction.

The case is No. 24-md-03101-JSC.

Judge: Corley, J.

Attorneys: Monique Amanda Alarcon (Wisner Baum LLP) for Joey Vanostrand and J.V. Livia M. Kiser (King & Spalding LLP) for Beech-Nut Nutrition Co. and Walmart, Inc.

Companies: Beech-Nut Nutrition Co.; Walmart, Inc.

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