As You Sow v. International Paper Company, Inc., et al.

Whistleblower and private Proposition 65 enforcer, As You Sow, and manufacturer of chemical and paper products, International Paper Company, Inc., entered into a settlement resolving the private enforcement action brought by AYS for alleged violations of California's Proposition 65. The settlement covers two dozen International Paper cleaning products and solvents that contain toluene, dichloromethane and tetrachloroethylene. Each of these chemicals is listed pursuant to Proposition 65 as known to cause cancer, or reproductive harm or birth defects.

AYS commenced the private enforcement action on November 8, 1995, when it served a 60-day notice of violation alleging that International Paper violated Proposition 65 warning requirements when it exposed individuals to the listed chemicals without providing the required health hazard warnings. After no public enforcer intervened to prosecute the violations alleged in the notice, AYS filed an action naming International Paper as a defendant on July 16, 1996. In a second 60-day notice of violation served on August 8, 1996, AYS alleged further violations based on unwarned exposures to listed chemicals in International Paper products sold in California and identified by AYS. On December 13, 1996, the San Mateo County Superior Court approved the settlement, which resolved AYS's allegations, and entered a judgment according to its terms (Case No. CIV-397279).

The terms of the settlement required International Paper to provide specific health hazard warnings requested by AYS and to revise the MSDS included with each of the 24 products to include reference to the carcinogenic or teratogenic harms associated with exposures to any Proposition 65-listed chemicals in the product. Under the settlement, International Paper made settlement payments totaling $81,132. International Paper made a $27,500 payment to AYS in lieu of civil penalties that AYS distributed to California nonprofit groups working to reduce consumer and workplace exposures to toxic chemicals and to educate the public and workers about exposures to toxic chemicals. The settlement also provided for a $14,867 payment of civil penalties to be divided between the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (75%) and AYS (25%), and reimbursement of AYS's reasonable attorneys' fees and costs incurred in bringing the action and negotiating a settlement of the matter in the public interest.