Brimer v. BBC Apparel Group, LLC

On October 14, 2011, the San Francisco County Superior Court entered a Consent Judgment in Brimer v. BBC Apparel Group, LLC, which resolved citizen enforcer Russell Brimer's allegations that the defendant BBC Apparel Group, LLC ("BBC Apparel"), sold jackets containing the heavy metal lead in the State of California without providing the requisite health hazard warnings.

As part of the settlement, BBC Apparel agreed not to sell any jackets after September 1, 2011, unless each accessible component of such jackets contains less than 1.0 microgram of lead and less than 300 parts per million of lead when analyzed using state or federally approved testing methodologies. For a six-month interim period, BBC Apparel also agreed to place Proposition 65 warnings on any jackets that do not meet reformulation standards. Additionally, by September 20, 2011, BBC Apparel agreed to provide the reformulation standards to all of its then-current vendors of jackets and instruct them to either return jackets or label them with Proposition 65 warnings. Should BBC Apparel comply with the heightened standards set forth in Section 4.2 of the Consent Judgment, Brimer agreed to waive a portion of the civil fine that would otherwise be applied.

The Consent Judgment requires settlement payments of $51,235, divided therein between civil penalties, 75% of which are paid to California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, and compensation to whistleblower Brimer and his counsel for their successful enforcement of this matter in the public interest.