Adam R. Fox

Class Action Cases

• Currently serving as lead counsel defending Sprout Foods in a number of putative class actions alleging false advertising by failing to disclose the presence of trace amounts of heavy metals in baby food products, following the publication of a Staff Report by a Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy for the US House of Representatives expressing industry-wide concerns.
• Now serving as lead counsel defending the former Chief Deputy City Attorney of Los Angeles in multiple putative federal class actions alleging collusion between the City Attorney’s Office and plaintiffs’ lawyers in a prior lawsuit against the City’s Department of Water and Power, purportedly depriving ratepayers of full recompense for overcharges, violating 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the civil RICO statute.
• Obtaining as lead counsel for a multinational maker of leading probiotic drinks the denial of class certification to a putative federal class action alleging false advertising of the health benefits of consuming the company’s beverages. After the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed the case in order to appeal this denial of class certification, we persuaded the Ninth Circuit to dismiss the appeal.
• Securing, as lead counsel for a multinational consumer products company, the complete dismissal of a putative federal class action alleging false advertising of its line of leading dental floss products allegedly contaminated by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances as a result of their manufacturing process. We obtained the dismissal based on inconsistencies between the pleaded allegations and the scientific publication on which the claims were explicitly based.
• Resolving by amicable settlement a putative federal class action brought by prison inmates and a criminal defense lawyer against a prison telephone service provider accused of recording privileged calls and falsely advertising the privacy of those calls. This result followed the Ninth Circuit’s grant of our Rule 23 petition for review of the trial court’s order granting a renewed motion for class certification after the trial court had earlier denied certification based on the same evidence, and a trial court ruling requiring Plaintiffs to show scienter.
• Resolving by amicable settlement a putative federal class action brought against a premium organic juice company accused of falsely advertising its products as “fresh pressed” and “cold pressed” despite being pasteurized, following a successful discovery strategy exposing the plaintiff as a serial litigant prior to resolution of the class question.
• Obtaining, without payment, the plaintiff’s voluntary dismissal of a putative federal class action alleging false advertising by a leading moving equipment and storage rental company after presenting the plaintiff with evidence contradicting his claims.
• Persuading numerous counsel not to file threatened class action lawsuits alleging false advertising against a variety of companies, including a major cosmetics firm, a well-known fast-food chain and an international sandwich chain, among others.

Complex Civil and Cross Border Cases

• Currently representing Fashion Nova as its lead counsel in a federal lawsuit pending in the Central District of California, defending allegations by Playboy of trademark infringement, and asserting counterclaims seeking the invalidation of those marks to Playboy’s so-called “Bunny Costume,” in part because Playboy abandoned the marks for clothing goods, maintaining them only for employee uniforms relating to certain services.
• Currently serving as lead counsel for a communications company in a federal lawsuit pending in the Eastern District of Missouri, alleging that it violated 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the privacy rights of individuals by providing law enforcement personnel access to their location information based on cell phone usage.
• Securing a nine-figure arbitration award for the claimant in an arbitration before the Netherlands Arbitration Institute in Amsterdam that sought to enforce its contractual and intellectual property rights in certain technology providing Location Based Services to monetize a popular geosocial networking application used by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
• Orchestrating, as lead counsel, a multimillion-dollar directed verdict for the US subsidiary of a multinational corporation in a complex business dispute involving claims of breach of contract and fraud.
• Resolving a claim by a Hollywood celebrity that a leading cosmetics company and several high-end retailers claims violated her rights of publicity following a successful motion to strike punitive damages.
• Serving, prior to settlement, as lead counsel for America’s sugar farmers and refiners in a federal false advertising lawsuit against processors of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and their trade group, for falsely advertising the various formulations of HFCS as “corn sugar,” “natural” and that “your body can’t tell the difference.”
• Securing, as lead trial counsel, a jury verdict for a commercial plaintiff and counterclaim defendant in a multimillion-dollar international contract dispute in federal court regarding the importation of goods subjected to antidumping tariffs.
• Resolving, by amicable settlement, a multijurisdictional trademark infringement case involving Zippo, the iconic, consumer product company and owner of the BLU trademark for its innovative torch flame butane lighters and the maker of BLU electronic cigarettes.
• Obtaining summary judgment based on the license exhaustion doctrine for computer motherboard designers against several patent infringement claims for technology essential to their business.
• Resolving, by amicable settlement, a federal false advertising case on behalf of Breville, a pioneer in fruit and vegetable juicers, against a group of competitors promoting a line of masticating juicers as extracting and preserving more vitamins, minerals, enzymes and other nutrients than competitive centrifugal juicers.
• Having represented Banco Central de Venezuela, the Venezuelan central bank, in a federal lawsuit asserting civil RICO and Lanham Act false advertising claims against a group of defendants allegedly involved in an enterprise using social media tools to misrepresent and manipulate a black market for foreign exchange, exacerbating inflation and robbing the central bank of seigniorage.
• Resolving, by amicable settlement, a federal false advertising case on behalf of a sugar industry trade association and several of its members against a competitor making a popular low-calorie sweetener following the successful pre-trial challenge of one of its experts addressing damages.
• Obtaining an appellate court mandate vacating an order of a trial court that had denied a motion to dismiss a Japan-based company for lack of personal jurisdiction; although, its only contact with the forum was its US subsidiary.
• Securing orders and Special Examiner appointment to compel production of documents and take testimony in the US in aid of legal proceedings pending in the People’s Republic of China.
• Representing entertainment industry players, including a graphic novel publisher, an animation company, a world champion boxer, a major recording artist, one of Hollywood’s top actors and the licensing company of one of the world’s most famous comedy teams.

Environmental Exposure Cases

• Amicably resolving, after securing partial summary judgment as lead counsel for the named defendant against claims brought by a California state agency, alleging the contamination of soil and groundwater with numerous solvents and perchlorate resulting from the use of perchloric acid in a recycling process for polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene commonly known by the brand name Teflon™.
• Representing a major chemical manufacturer in a 3,500+ plaintiff multidistrict litigation involving claims that drinking water allegedly contaminated with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) resulted in serious personal injury. Served in all aspects of the defense, with a particular focus on the scientific and expert issues relating to epidemiology and corporate conduct in light of the historic state of scientific knowledge.
• Obtaining, as lead counsel, the dismissal of a California company and its foreign corporate parent, both of which had been sued in more than 40 coordinated cases in California state court alleging the toxic exposure of thousands of plaintiffs to hexavalent chromium from the clinker dust from the cement operations of several enterprises.
• Securing summary judgment – and obtaining an appellate affirmance of that judgment – for the owner of property adjacent to a US EPA Superfund site in response to charges that contamination had migrated to the site causing injuries to workers there.
• Acting as trial counsel and obtaining a defense jury verdict for a well-known petrochemical company against multiple claims of serious injury arising from alleged toxic exposure to benzene and toluene.