As You Sow v. Hach Company, et al.

A Consent Judgment in the As You Sow v. Hach Company, et al. matter, heard in the San Francisco County Superior Court, was entered on December 26, 1995. The Consent Judgment resolved private enforcer As You Sow's allegations that the defendant Hach Company ("Hach") manufactured, sold and distributed systems for water analysis (hereinafter "products") containing chemicals listed pursuant to Proposition 65 in the State of California without providing the requisite health hazard warnings.

As part of the settlement, Hach agreed not to sell in California products unless such products contained Health Hazard warning labels as prescribed in the Consent Judgment and further agreed to revise its material safety data sheets to add Proposition 65 warnings by January 12, 1996.

The Consent Judgment required settlement payments of $12,700, divided therein between civil penalties, 75% of which were paid to California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, and compensation to whistleblower As You Sow and their counsel for the successful enforcement of this matter in the public interest. Furthermore, the Consent Judgment required Hach to pay $3,100 in restitution to As You Sow, which was forwarded by As You Sow to the Rainforest Action Network, a nonprofit advocacy group dedicated to saving rainforests from destruction, and to the As You Sow Investigation Fund, which was used to further As You Sow's statewide investigation of unwarned consumer exposures to Proposition 65-listed chemicals.