A Class Action Fount Dries Up in CA

California, for once instead of leading has joined the rest of the country with the signing of a new law that redefines want constitutes “made in the USA,” says a post from Mintz Levin. Formerly, under California law if a manufacturer claimed an article was made in the USA and any part had been produced “entirely or substantially” abroad, it was a violation, even though the product met federal made-in-USA labeling criteria and the standards of other states. This had resulted in an “epidemic” of California consumer class actions targeting manufacturers whose product allegedly failed this strict test. The new law, mirroring the more common national standard, allows parts constituting a specified minor percentage of a product’s value to be of non-domestic origin without making the product ineligible for the made-in-USA designation.