The Herbalife lawsuit just keeps getting worse…..In an unprecedented legal action, the attorney for the woman suing Herbalife over health problems she says was caused by the company’s Dietary Supplements, Christopher Grell, has expanded the scope of his lawsuit by adding a new group of defendants- the plaintiff’s “up-line distributors.”
The current suit against the company is seeking damages for fraud and product negligence.
Grell says that they will go after multiple “defendants” who were in the up-line of his client and will keep adding new defendants as the discovery portion of the case moves along.
Herbalife announced over a week ago that independent lab tests showed that the company’s products were in compliance with Proposition 65 which maintains safety as far as lead levels in dietary and nutritional supplements. Although the company claimed they had tests to prove this, no documents were ever released. Grell has since won a motion to get those test results. In the last week and a half, we have heard nothing from Herbalife, and now this case is expanding getting a lot worse for Herbalife.
While I think its important to maintain the quality and safety of the products, it seems a bit unfair to sue the distributors in the up-line. Those distributors only go by the information provided by their company. Distributors cannot be expected to run their own experiments to determine the efficacy or safety of products provided to them by the company. Hopefully Herbalife will find a way to settle this lawsuit quickly and can also provide results from scientific tests that back up their claim that their products are safe. Distributors from the company should not be held responsible for the company’s mistakes.
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Fair is A Realtive Term
Under the law, manufacturers, and all distributors, are liable for injuries caused by a defective product. The law is based on the notion that it is better that the person distributing the defective product be held liable instead of depriving the innocent victim of the right to recover damages.
The unfairness is further mitigated in California by what is commonly known as Prop 51. a law which limits each defendants liability for pain and suffering based on the persons sharre of fault or contribution to the victims damges.
Indeed, if a distributor is not named as a defendant, another defendant, who is named in the lawsuit, can try to point the finger at the missing defendant, in order to reduce their own share of fault. When this happens, the innocnet victim is deprived of the right to recover for the damages they sustained.
In short, the question of fairness is a realtive one which must factor in the unfairness to the victim if the distributor is not responsible.
The question of distributor fairness should also take into account Herbalife’s duty and responsibility to their distributors by providing insurance coverage especially when you consider that almost all of Herbalife products are sold through their distributors.
Finally, the the issue of fairness needs to factor in the right of a distributor to file a cross-complaint against herbalife for indemnity and contribution.
In short, while naming the distributor may sound unfair because the distribuors is not in charge of the way the products are manufactured, labeled and/or advertised, the distributor has protections like Prop 51,and the right to cross-complain.
The distributor also knows or should know what the law is when they choose to sell products. .
In otherwords, a distributor should not be able to sell and make profits from the sale of products and have no responsibility for the harm caused to the person they sell that product to.
If the law were otherwise, then the one who suffers the most is the victim, first by being injured by a defective product and then, by being denied the right to hold the person who sold the product to them accountable for the harm they suffered.
Comment by Christopher Grell — June 20, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
While I agree that fair is relative, you are also presuming that the distributor knowingly acted in a way that was or could’ve been detrimental to the people they were selling products to. There is absolutely no way any distributor would have knowledge of apparently high levels of lead in a product they were representing unless they had it tested like Minkow did. In fact, NO ONE would know unless they conducted a clinical lab test - which we all know is not practical.
Just as retailers are not responsible for products sold in which a manufacturer is to blame for a defect or if it causes harm, the same should hold true for the distributor. When phen phen was deemed to be harmful, there isnt a court in the country that would’ve taken a case that sued the retailer of the product. They are a conduit - just as the distributor of Herbalife’s products are.
Going after a manufacturer for claims against its products are one thing - going after a distributor and forcing them to incur unnecessary legal fees seems wrong.
Comment by Steven — June 23, 2008 @ 5:13 am
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