Brimer v. Jack Schwartz Shoes, Incorporated

On December 10, 2010, the San Francisco County Superior Court entered a Consent Judgment in Brimer v. Jack Schwartz Shoes, Inc., which resolved citizen enforcer Russell Brimer's allegations that the defendant Jack Schwartz Shoes, Incorporated ("Jack Schwartz") sold infant footwear containing the heavy metal lead on the exterior shoe surfaces in the State of California without providing the requisite health hazard warnings.

As part of the settlement, Schwartz agreed not to sell any infant footwear in California after August 25, 2010, unless the footwear contains less than 300 parts per million of lead in or on any of its pieces, portions, or components or has Proposition 65 warnings affixed to it. Should Jack Schwartz implement a testing protocol and recall the infant footwear that does not comply with the reformulation standards, Brimer agreed to credit a portion of the civil fine that would otherwise be applied.

The Consent Judgment requires settlement payments of $42,000, 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.