Leeman v. Mikasa, Inc., et al.

The San Francisco County Superior Court entered a Consent Judgment in Leeman v. Mikasa, Inc, et al. on August 31, 2004. The settlement resolved the allegations of citizen enforcer Whitney R. Leeman, Ph.D. that defendant Mikasa, Inc. sold certain glassware products containing colored designs or decorations with materials that contain lead and cadmium in the State of California without providing the requisite health hazard warnings.

As part of the settlement, Mikasa agreed to immediately begin providing Proposition 65 health hazard warnings with regard to the sale of any covered products in California, utilizing language set forth in Sections 1.1(a) or 1.1(b) of the agreement. The agreement also set out reformulation standards for which a product would not require a warning. A product would not require a warning if (1) the painted decoration is solely on the exterior of the product exclusive of the top 20 millimeters and produces either a non-detectable test result or a test result no higher than 1.0 micrograms of lead using a wipe test outlined in NIOSH method 9100; or (2) if the painted decoration extends into the lip and rim area (the top 20 millimeters of the glassware) or the interior of the product and produces a test result acceptable under subparagraph (a) above and a result of 0.5 micrograms/milliliter of lead or less with respect to any decoration in the lip and rim area and/or a result of 0.1 parts per million lead with respect to any decoration on the interior of the product; or (3) the product utilizes paints on all decorations containing 0.04% lead by weight or less and contains no painted decoration within any part of the interior or the lip and rim area of the product. Dr. Leeman agreed to waive a portion of the civil payment if Mikasa certified that, by specific dates set out in the agreement, it has (1) altered corporate policy to undertake efforts to obtain reformulated products; (2) employed actual and substantial efforts to obtain reformulated products; and (3) only sells and/or offers for sale reformulated products in California.

The Consent Judgment required settlement payment of $135,000, divided therein between civil penalties, 75% of which are paid to California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, and compensation to whistleblower Dr. Leeman and her counsel for their successful enforcement of this matter in the public interest.