Brimer v. DFI (San Jose) Inc., et al.

On February 20, 2008, the Alameda County Superior Court entered a Consent Judgment in Brimer v. DFI (San Jose) Inc., which resolved citizen enforcer Russell Brimer's allegations that the defendant DFI (San Jose) Inc. ("DFI") sold motherboards with solder containing the heavy metal lead in the State of California without providing the requisite health hazard warnings.

As part of the settlement, DFI agreed not to sell any motherboards in California after July 25, 2007, unless the motherboards are sold or shipped with Proposition 65 warnings or contain no more than .1% of lead by weight in each solder material (unless the material is embedded in a manner that a consumer or worker would not ordinarily come into contact with the lead during reasonably foreseeable use). All desktop products DFI offers for sale in California after December 31, 2007, shall qualify as reformulated. Additionally, in a good faith effort to warn the public about the potential health risk from motherboards sold before July 25, 2007, DFI agreed to post a Proposition 65 warning on its website for three years. Due to DFI's cooperation, Brimer agreed to credit a portion of the civil fine. Should DFI comply with its public information commitment and present a report to Brimer, Brimer agreed to waive an additional portion of the civil fine.

The Consent Judgment requires settlement payments of $48,000, to be 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.