In a recent case from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, two plaintiffs alleged that Danone Waters of America, LLC (“Danone”) violated Illinois and California state statutes by labeling Evian spring water “natural” despite the presence of microplastics which leach from the plastic bottles into the water.  Daly v. Danone Waters of America, LLC, 2024 WL 4679086 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 5, 2024). 

Danone filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ complaint on the grounds that bottled “spring water” is federally regulated and that the plaintiffs’ attempts to tack on additional requirements under state consumer protection statutes were subject to federal conflict preemption.  After analyzing the relevant federal regulatory provisions, the court agreed with Danone and dismissed the plaintiffs’ complaint without prejudice.

Specifically, the court looked to 21 C.F.R. § 165.110(a)(2)(vi), where “spring water” is defined as that which is “derived from an underground formation from which water flows naturally to the surface of the earth . . .”  Although the plaintiffs argued that the focus of their claims was on Danone’s allegedly misleading use of the term “natural” rather than “spring water,” the court found that the two terms were closely interrelated as the word “natural” is found six other times in the definition of “spring water” found at 21 C.F.R. § 165.110(a)(2)(vi).

Accordingly, the court reasoned that so long as the bottled water was derived from a natural spring as defined in that provision, companies such as Danone could label it as both “spring water” and “natural,” and that any additional state level requirements for use of the word “natural” on bottled water are preempted.

In making this determination, the court cited to three other federal court decisions that came to the same conclusion in state consumer protection suits involving microplastics in bottled water but disagreed with their reasoning.  While the other decisions cited to the absence of the term “microplastics” in the relevant federal regulations, the court stated that it was unnecessary to reach that determination in defining the preemptory scope of the term “natural.”  In other words, the court concluded that “natural” refers to the source of the bottled water in question – here, “spring water” – rather than to its contents.  Therefore, unlike the prior decisions addressing this issue, the court left open the question of whether the presence of microplastics in bottled water would violate federal or state law and permitted the plaintiffs to file an amended complaint.  

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