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Erin Moore

Erin Moore is an associate in the firm’s Los Angeles office. Her practice focuses on commercial litigation with an emphasis on the media and entertainment industries. She additionally maintains an active pro bono practice, involving matters ranging from adoptions to trademark counseling for small businesses.

Prior to attending law school, Erin worked in arts administration and management at leading non-profit performing arts organizations across the United States and internationally. She brings this depth of experience in advocating for arts and media organizations to her work for her clients.

Delivering a significant win for businesses hit with website wiretapping lawsuits, a California federal judge granted a defendant’s motion for summary judgment under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”) in Gutierrez v. Converse Inc., 2024 WL 3511648 (C.D. Cal. Jul. 12, 2024). 

The website tool at issue in this case, like hundreds of other cases, was a third-party-enabled chat feature that businesses install on their websites to connect customers with live customer service agents.  Plaintiff Nora Gutierrez alleged that she visited Defendant Converse’s website with this chat feature installed, and that the chat provider stored her chat communications with Converse’s customer service agents on its servers.  Gutierrez characterized this practice as “wiretapping” and she asserted a claim against Converse for aiding and abetting the alleged wiretapping in violation of the first and second clause of CIPA section 631(a).Continue Reading California Federal Court Grants Summary Judgment to Defendant in CIPA Website Wiretapping Case

A Washington court recently dismissed with prejudice putative class action claims against Seattle Children’s Hospital asserting that use of third-party tracking technology on its website constituted wiretapping and other privacy law violations.Continue Reading Washington State Court Dismisses Wiretapping and Other Claims Involving Hospital Website

In a major victory for manufacturers of food and beverage products fighting acrylamide litigation under California’s Proposition 65 statute, the Ninth Circuit on March 17 upheld a preliminary injunction barring new lawsuits to enforce Prop. 65’s warning requirement for cancer as applied to acrylamide in food and beverage products, finding that the statute’s compulsory warnings are “likely misleading” and “controversial.”

Prop. 65 provides that “[n]o person in the course of doing business shall knowingly and intentionally expose any individual to a chemical known to the state to cause cancer . . . without first giving clear and reasonable warning to such individual, except as provided in Section 25249.10.”  Cal. Health & Safety Code § 25249.6.  In October 2019, California Chamber of Commerce (“CalChamber”) filed suit for declaratory and injunctive relief against the Attorney General of California, seeking to halt acrylamide litigation brought under Prop. 65.  It argued that Prop. 65’s warning requirement violated its members’ First Amendment right not to be compelled to place “false and misleading” acrylamide warnings on their food products.  Acrylamide is often found in baked or fried foods, and has also been identified in products like coffee, almonds and black olives. 

CalChamber further moved for a preliminary injunction seeking a prohibition on new lawsuits to enforce the Prop. 65 warning requirement for cancer as applied to acrylamide in food and beverage products.  The Council for Education and Research on Toxics (“CERT”) intervened as a defendant and argued that, as a private enforcer of Prop. 65, an injunction would “impose an unconstitutional prior restraint on its First Amendment rights.”  Continue Reading 9th Circuit Upholds Preliminary Injunction Against Prop. 65 Acrylamide Lawsuits

Keurig has agreed to settle on a nationwide class basis a lawsuit alleging that the labeling of its K-Cup pods misleads consumers into believing that K-Cups are more widely recyclable than the coffee pods actually are.

The complaint, filed in 2018, alleged that Keurig marketed its products as recyclable, despite knowing that they “typically end[ed] up in landfills.” The plaintiff claimed that the packaging conveyed that consumers can “[h]ave [their] cup and recycle it, too,” by following the illustrated instructions to “PEEL,” “EMPTY,” and “RECYCLE” next to the chasing arrow recycling symbol. However, the plaintiff claimed, these labels were deceptive because K-Cups cannot be recycled due to their size, making them per se deceptive under the Green Guides, which state that “if any component [of a recyclable product] limits the ability to recycle the item, any recyclable claim would be deceptive. . . . [If] its shape, size or some other attribute is not accepted in recycling programs, [it] should not be marketed as recyclable.” The plaintiff additionally alleged that even if any pods were incidentally recycled, they would still end up in landfills because there was no downstream market for the recycled pods.Continue Reading Keurig Settles K-Cup Recycling Claims