Can I File a Claim Against Baby Food Manufacturers?

In 2021, a congressional report found toxic heavy metals—arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury—in baby food sold by major brands. Not trace amounts. Levels high enough to damage a developing brain.

If contaminated baby food harmed your child, you might have a valid legal claim against the manufacturer.

Call (833) 552-7274 today or contact us online. At LitigationConnect, our network of lawyers works with families dealing with exactly this. We’ll connect you to someone local who knows how to handle these claims and isn’t afraid to go up against the big names.

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Understanding Legal Grounds for Filing a Claim Against Baby Food Manufacturers

U.S. product liability law doesn’t favor manufacturers who cut corners with children’s health. The legal system offers specific pathways to hold them accountable.

Product Liability – The Foundation of Most Claims

Product lia bility laws hold manufacturers, distributors, and sellers responsible when their products cause harm. You don’t need to prove intent, or that they knew about any potential to cause harm; only that the defective product caused injury.

There are three types of defects:

Design defect – The product was dangerous by design, even when used correctly. If a baby food recipe naturally leads to elevated heavy metal levels, that’s a design defect.
Manufacturing defect – The product became harmful due to a mistake during production—for example, contamination introduced in a single factory or batch.

States follow different rules, but many use a strict liability standard. California’s product liability laws, for instance, follow this model under Restatement (Second) of Torts §402A.

Negligence – When the Company Just Didn’t Care Enough

Negligence focuses on the company’s behavior. It asks: did the manufacturer fail to act like a reasonable company would under the same circumstances?

To succeed in a negligence claim, your lawyer needs to prove four things:

Duty of care – The company had a legal responsibility to ensure its food was safe.
Breach – The company failed to meet that responsibility (e.g., didn’t test for toxic metals).
Causation – That breach caused actual harm to your child.
Damages – You suffered real losses, like medical bills or developmental delays.

Negligence claims may bring in broader issues like the company’s internal testing policies, failure to follow FDA guidelines, or ignoring third-party lab results.

Failure to Warn – The Silent Liability

Even if the product wasn’t defective, companies must warn about known risks. This is where a lot of baby food lawsuits get traction. If a company knew its product contained high levels of arsenic or lead and didn’t label it or alert consumers, they failed to warn.

Federal law plays a role here too. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) deems food products that contain poisonous or deleterious substances adulterated (21 U.S.C. §342).

That includes baby food with unsafe heavy metal levels. The FDA’s Closer to Zero initiative acknowledged these risks, but doesn’t currently enforce strict limits. That leaves room for civil action.

So, how does this work in court? If a company ignored red flags – maybe internal reports surfaced, or government findings confirmed toxins were present – and kept selling the product anyway, they can be held liable under legal theories like failure-to-warn and negligence. And yes, if your lawyer digs up internal documents, emails, or quality reports showing the company knew about the problem and didn't act appropriately, that evidence significantly strengthens the case. It makes proving negligence easier and could potentially open the door to punitive damages, which are designed to punish companies for egregious behavior (though laws on this vary).

However, here's a crucial distinction: Proving the company knew isn't always the only path forward, thanks to strict liability laws present in many states. As mentioned earlier, strict liability focuses less on the company's mindset or knowledge. Under these standards, if you can prove the baby food product itself was unreasonably dangerous (due to heavy metals), that it caused harm to your child, and that you suffered damages as a result, the company can be held liable. Their ignorance or lack of malice isn't necessarily a defense against strict liability.

Identifying Potential Defendants in Baby Food Lawsuits

Once the legal foundation is in place, the next step is figuring out who to sue. These cases don’t always stop at the brand name on the jar. The chain of liability usually stretches further than most parents expect.

Major Baby Food Manufacturers

At the top of the list sit the companies that actually produce and market the baby food:

Nurture Inc. (HappyBABY)
Beech-Nut Nutrition Company [open lawsuit]
Hain Celestial Group (Earth’s Best)
Gerber Products Company [open lawsuit]
Campbell Soup Company (Plum Organics)
Walmart (Parent’s Choice brand)

If the product injured your child and that product came from one of these brands, they belong on the complaint.

Retailers and Distributors

If a retailer knowingly sells a contaminated product—or ignores warning signs—they don’t get a free pass. Courts may hold them liable under product liability or negligence claims, depending on state law.

Take California, for example. Under Cal. Civ. Code § 1714.46, any party in the chain of distribution may face strict liability, including retailers, wholesalers, and even online marketplaces, if they had control over the product or contributed to the harm.

In other states, retailers get roped in under “stream of commerce” theories. The idea is simple: if you profit from putting the product in the hands of consumers, you accept some responsibility when it causes harm.

Private Label and White-Label Manufacturers

Some store brands outsource manufacturing to third-party producers. The store’s name might be on the package, but the actual product comes from another facility. In those cases, the third-party manufacturer becomes a potential defendant, especially if they handled production, sourcing, or testing.

Ingredient Suppliers

If testing shows that a specific ingredient—like rice or fruit puree—carried most of the toxins, ingredient suppliers could also end up liable. But they’re harder to reach. Most lawsuits focus on the consumer-facing brand and the producer, unless evidence directly links the contamination to a known supplier who should have flagged it.

Steps to Take Before Filing a Lawsuit

Once you've identified the players, it’s time to build the case.

Consult a Qualified Attorney

Step one: get legal representation. Mass torts, especially those involving toxic exposure in children, require deep legal experience and resources.

These cases usually fall under state tort law, but when a federal MDL (multidistrict litigation) forms, a federal court consolidates them for pretrial purposes. You need a lawyer who knows both environments.

Gather Evidence

You need to show a direct link between the product and the harm it caused. That means evidence.

Get your paperwork in order:

Receipts or proof of purchase – Bank statements, store receipts, or product packaging.
Medical records – Reports that document developmental delays, neurological diagnoses, or other related conditions.
Consumption timeline – Approximate start and stop dates for when your child consumed the product, including brand and flavor information.
Witnesses – Pediatricians, caregivers, or others who can attest to behavior changes or symptoms.

Your attorney will handle the legal side, but the more solid your documentation, the stronger your claim starts.

Understand Statutes of Limitations

The clock matters. Every state sets a legal deadline for filing a lawsuit, and that deadline varies depending on the type of claim.

In most product liability cases involving minors, the statute doesn’t begin until the child turns 18. But that’s not universal. For example:

California: The standard limit is two years from the date of injury for personal injury claims (Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 335.1), but minors get extended time under Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 352(a).
Texas: Two-year deadline (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003), but it’s tolled during the child’s minority.
New York: Three years from the injury (CPLR 214), extended for minors under CPLR 208.

That might sound generous, but don’t treat it like an open window. Evidence fades, records get lost, and companies don’t wait around to defend themselves. File too late, and the court tosses the case—no matter how valid the claim.

The attorney will calculate the statute based on when symptoms appeared, when the product was used, and where the lawsuit will be filed. If multiple products or jurisdictions are involved, that timeline might split across different forums. The sooner you move, the cleaner the case.

Potential Challenges in Baby Food Litigation

No lawsuit goes unchallenged, especially when billion-dollar companies stand accused. Manufacturers don’t roll over—they lawy up, deflect blame, and make plaintiffs work for every inch. If you’re filing a baby food lawsuit, expect resistance. Here's what gets contested the most.

Proving Causation

The legal term is proximate cause. In plain English, the court wants to see that the baby food didn’t just exist in the background but that it actively contributed to or caused the harm.

Defense teams usually argue that developmental conditions—like ADHD or autism—have complex causes. They’ll cite genetic predispositions, environmental factors, and alternative explanations.

This is where your legal team brings in medical experts, epidemiologists, and toxicologists to draw the connection with heavy metals like lead or arsenic.

Scientific Disputes

Even if the product contained known neurotoxins, companies don’t simply accept the accusation. They go after the science.

Expect them to argue:

The metal levels fell within “acceptable” thresholds (even if those thresholds exist more on paper than in reality).
No definitive study links the specific product to developmental delays.
The research you cite is inconclusive, outdated, or cherry-picked.

Under the Daubert standard (used in federal courts and many states), the judge acts as a gatekeeper to determine whether your experts meet a certain threshold of reliability and relevance. If your team’s experts fail that test, the whole case can collapse before trial.

Regulatory Standards as a Shield

When backed into a corner, companies love pointing to the FDA. They argue: “We followed the rules. The product complied with federal guidelines.”

The problem is that those guidelines are either non-binding or absurdly lenient when it comes to heavy metals in baby food.

The FDA has no legally enforceable limits for arsenic, lead, cadmium, or mercury in most baby foods. Their Closer to Zero program lays out goals, not mandates. So companies use the lack of hard limits as legal armor.

That doesn’t always work. Courts have ruled that compliance with federal standards doesn’t automatically exempt a company from liability, especially when those standards are loose or outdated. But defense lawyers will still hammer the point.

Blame-Shifting and Denial

If none of the above arguments work, expect them to push the blame:

On parents (“You didn’t feed the product exclusively”)
On doctors (“You didn’t raise concerns soon enough”)
On schools or environmental factors

Current Status of Baby Food Lawsuits

To handle the flood of claims efficiently, a group of cases was consolidated into MDL No. 3101, In re: Baby Food Products Liability Litigation, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

MDL status doesn’t merge cases. Instead, it centralizes pretrial proceedings like discovery and motions so courts don’t repeat the same process hundreds of times.

Here’s what that means:

One judge oversees all pretrial motions, discovery disputes, and evidentiary rulings.
Plaintiffs share expert reports and corporate discovery, reducing duplication.
Individual cases may still go to trial later, either in their home districts or through bellwether trials within the MDL.

As of early 2025, discovery is underway. The court has issued document preservation orders and is reviewing motions to compel internal emails, product testing data, and communications with regulators.

The outcome of early rulings and expert challenges will determine how many of these claims survive to trial. If the court finds the evidence strong enough, bellwether trials will likely begin within the next year. These early trials don’t decide every case—but they set the tone for settlement negotiations and future verdicts.

Some defendants have tried to get claims dismissed on preemption grounds, arguing that the lawsuits interfere with the FDA’s regulatory authority. So far, those arguments haven’t succeeded.

Judges have ruled that the FDA’s lack of binding limits doesn’t give companies a free pass when real harm occurs.

Hold Baby Food Companies Accountable

These companies knew. They had the test results, saw the numbers, and still pushed their products onto shelves. If that decision hurt your child, don’t let them hide behind lawyers and vague FDA guidelines.

Call (833) 552-7274 today or contact us online. At LitigationConnect, our network of lawyers has already gone after these manufacturers. We’ll connect you with someone local who knows how to hit them where it counts.