The legal battle over Stanley tumblers has taken another turn.
Plaintiffs that filed a class action lawsuit tied to lead concerns in the drinkware against the Stanley brand’s parent company, Pacific Market International (PMI), have hit back at PMI’s motion to dismiss the case.
In a filing last week, the suing consumers told a federal judge that the Washington-headquartered company’s dismissal motion should be denied.
In July, attorneys for PMI asked a federal judge in Washington to throw the case out, arguing in significant part that the complaint alleges no facts that show the presence of lead in Stanley drinkware products caused any harm.
“In a lawsuit centered on the alleged failure to disclose a purportedly harmful component of the product, the complaint is striking for its lack of any factual allegations showing that the product causes harm or otherwise poses a ‘safety- and health-related concern,’” PMI attorneys wrote in their filing to U.S. District Judge Tana Lin. “That glaring omission cannot be an oversight. … This fatal flaw requires dismissal of the entire complaint.”
Malarkey, said attorneys for the plaintiffs.
Their most fundamental argument for denying the dismissal comes down to a few key points: Namely, the case doesn’t hinge on physical harm or specific lead levels in the tumblers but rather that PMI/Stanley deceived consumers by failing to disclose that the drinkware contains some lead in it.
“PMI unfairly and deceptively profited at plaintiffs’ expense based on this material omission,” the attorneys said. The “plaintiffs do not allege physical injuries but rather financial injury resulting from their purchases of a product they would not have otherwise purchased if they had known of the presence of lead and risk of exposure.”
The case seeks what would amount to hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for people in the class – essentially anyone who bought a Stanley tumbler in the United States.
Judge Lin has not yet ruled on PMI’s motion to dismiss.
After videos started circulating on social media about Stanley lead concerns, PMI said in January that the material it uses to vacuum-insulate tumblers at their base contains some lead.
Excessive lead exposure can cause adverse health effects ranging from cardiovascular problems and kidney damage to nervous system issues and slower growth/development in children.
PMI has previously said the lead in the drinkware’s base isn’t a health threat. Some health experts have said there’s “practically zero risk” of lead exposure from Stanley tumblers. Nonetheless, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has noted that using lead in manufacturing creates “a risk of lead exposure for consumers of those products, especially for products intended for use in food consumption.”
The current case is a consolidation of multiple class action lawsuits that consumers brought against PMI over the lead issue. The courts had previously denied PMI’s request to dismiss some of the cases in April.
Stanley tumblers have been popular sellers at retail and in the promotional products industry. ASI Media named the Stanley Quencher the 2023 Product of the Year in the branded-merch market. The items continue to generate a high level of searches in ASI’s product research and procurement databases, ESP and ESP+.
