Daniel S. Silverman

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Daniel Silverman has more than 30 years of experience successfully defending against consumer false advertising class actions for food, beverage, and dietary supplement companies throughout the country, and litigating competitor false advertising suits brought under the Lanham Act. Dan also frequently defends against class actions involving privacy statutes, autorenewal laws, and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), as well as suits arising under California's Proposition 65. He also has a winning track record litigating a wide variety of complex commercial and intellectual property disputes.

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Join us as we spotlight select chapters of Venable’s popular Advertising Law Tool Kit, which helps marketing teams navigate their organization’s legal risk. Click here to download the entire Tool Kit, and tune in to the Ad Law Tool Kit Show podcast, to hear an author of this chapter dive deeper into mitigating class action exposure in this week’s episode.

When it comes to mitigating the risk of class action lawsuits, the best offense is a good defense. Companies can take many steps to reduce their exposure to class action litigation before it happens, including the tactics listed below.

Reducing exposure to class action litigation:

Continue Reading Mitigating Class Action Exposure: An Excerpt from the Advertising Law Tool Kit

orange splashJoining a growing trend in federal court jurisprudence, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California dismissed a class action complaint because it found that the Mott’s fruit snacks at issue did not affirmatively misrepresent their contents. In short, the court held that Mott’s fruit snacks’ labels could not deceive consumers because they were literally true.

The plaintiff in the Mott’s case asserted allegations similar to claims that had successfully withstood motions to dismiss in the past. He alleged that the fruit snacks’ use of phrases like “made with real fruit and vegetable juice” misled consumers to believe the products contained more fruits and vegetables than they did, and representations like “100% of your daily value of Vitamin C” falsely conveyed to consumers that the products were healthful and nutritious. Based on these allegations, the plaintiff brought consumer protection claims and related common law claims on behalf of himself and all California consumers who purchased Mott’s fruit snacks.Continue Reading The Tide Is Slowly Turning Against Food Labeling False Advertising Claims That Do Not Involve Affirmative Misrepresentations

On March 25, 2014, Judge Dean Pregerson, of the U.S. District Court, Central District of California, decertified a nationwide class of consumers in a class action brought against POM Wonderful LLC over allegedly false and misleading health claims related to its pomegranate juice.  Judge Pregerson’s decertification order is significant because it makes class certification more difficult for plaintiffs, requiring that: 1) Plaintiffs comport with the rigorous analysis of class-wide damages set forth in the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision of Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, 133. S. Ct 1426 (2013); and 2) Plaintiffs demonstrate that the putative class is ascertainable, which has been the recent focus of many courts, many of whom have denied class certification on that basis. See, e.g., Carrera v. Bayer Corp., 727 F. 3d 300 (3d Cir. 2013). Also see Greg Sater’s recent post, Chipotle Case Gives Hope Against Class Actions.
Continue Reading POM Wonderful’s Decertification Decision Will Be Hard to Swallow for the Plaintiffs’ Class Action Bar