Clorox Seeks Dismissal of Green Works ‘Natural’ Labeling Class Action

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Clorox is seeking dismissal of a class action lawsuit challenging the “natural” labeling on its Green Works line of cleaning products.

Defendant The Clorox Co. filed a motion to dismiss class action claims that it labels Green Works products deceptively, to make consumers think the products contain only natural ingredients.

At oral argument, an attorney for Clorox argued the terms “natural” and “naturally derived” aren’t misleading when read in the context of the product’s entire label.

Whatever the label’s contents, no reasonable consumer would ever think that products made for cleaning toilet bowls “grow from the ground,” defense counsel said.

Clorox argued that its existing labeling and promotional materials are adequate to give consumers an accurate impression of the nature of Green Works ingredients. The company cites settlements from three similar natural ingredients class action lawsuits, in which the required ingredient disclosures were not as detailed and informative as the disclosures already on Clorox’s website.

To that argument, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton responded that a settlement in one case does not set the standard to which other cases can be held. The judge also questioned why reasonable consumers should be expected to look up product information on a website, rather than simply relying on the product’s label to give them all the information they need.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs added that Clorox is ignoring important details of the three settlements. Those settlements also required the defendants to add information to their products’ labels of a type that is not currently on the labels for Green Works products, according to plaintiffs’ counsel.

This Clorox class action lawsuit was filed in July 2017 by plaintiffs Joseph Gregorio and Patrick Quiroz, who have since amended their complaint to add plaintiff Adam Cooper.

The plaintiffs claim Clorox is exploiting consumer interest in natural products without going to the trouble of providing a product that is truly “natural.” They claim the company represents Green Works products as “natural” to compel consumers to pay more for these products than they would if the products were labeled accurately.

Green Works is a line of Clorox cleaning products that includes laundry detergent, wet wipes and toilet bowl cleaner. The products are marketed with a green-colored label showing flower- and leaf-themed graphics. Copy on the label says the products feature “naturally derived” ingredients and promises “Powerful cleaning done naturally.”

The plaintiffs argue this labeling obscures the presence of ingredients in Green Works products that no reasonable consumer would consider “natural.”

Various products in the Green Works line contain ingredients like boric acid, calcium chloride, lauryl glucoside, methylisothiazolinone, sodium lauryl sulfate, and synthetic colorants, the plaintiffs say. Some of these ingredients are used in other applications like insecticides, road deicers, and chemical preservatives.

Plaintiffs argue consumers seeking a “natural” product would not purchase Green Works products if they knew they contained ingredients like these.

The plaintiffs are represented by attorney Joel D. Smith of Bursor & Fisher PA.

The Green Works Natural Products Mislabeling Class Action Lawsuit is Gregorio, et al. v. The Clorox Company, Case No. 3:17-cv-03824, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.