Supreme Court Considers Toxic Baby Food Lawsuit Involving Whole Foods

Politics|Supreme Court Considers Toxic Baby Food Lawsuit Involving Whole Foods

During the first two years of their child’s life, Sarah and Grant Palmquist fed their son organic baby food almost exclusively.

The couple bought the food, called Earth’s Best Organic Products, from Whole Foods Market, the supermarket chain known for its natural and organic products, according to a lawsuit they later filed. When the boy was about 2½ years old, his parents say, he began to suffer from several mental and physical problems and was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and heavy metal poisoning.

After a 2021 congressional report concluded that certain commercial baby foods, including Earth’s Best, were tainted with significant levels of toxic heavy metals, including “arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury,” the couple sued both the baby food maker and the grocery, arguing that the baby food had caused their son’s health problems.

They lost the suit — after a jury trial, the judge dismissed their case, finding that the couple’s theory that their son’s health issues had been caused by the baby food was “simply not supported by the science.”

But before that, the federal judge separately dismissed claims against the grocer, determining that Whole Foods had been improperly added to the lawsuit under what is known as “fraudulent joinder,” a legal tactic in which a party is added to a case to try and get into a particular court to gain a litigation advantage.

Without ruling on the merits of the couple’s claims, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit determined the trial judge had wrongly dropped Whole Foods from the case. The appeals court ordered the dispute sent to state court to start anew. That finding, involving complicated jurisdictional issues, landed the case of the allegedly tainted baby food before the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Although the justices did not delve into the cause of the boy’s illnesses during Tuesday’s argument, the case comes at a time of renewed national focus on autism.

Years of scientific research point to genetic mutations that affect brain development as the likely driver of autism. But government leaders, including President Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, have blamed the condition on debunked theories about vaccines and unproven ones like one about acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol.

The lawyer for the baby food maker, Sarah E. Harrington, argued that upending the trial court’s decision would create “opportunity for a great deal of waste,” all to include Whole Foods, which she said “was barely even mentioned in the trial.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pushed back on that, saying that the Texas couple might argue that they would not have lost at the trial if Whole Foods had still been part of the case.

Ms. Harrington responded that the absence of Whole Foods made no difference in the outcome of the case and that the trial judge had found that the Palmquists had failed to present a causal link between the baby food and the boy’s health problems.

“That’s just a failure of proof by the plaintiffs,” she said.

Nathan Cimbala, a spokesman for Whole Foods, said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked the lawyer for the Texas couple whether he agreed that the grocer’s absence from the case had no effect on the outcome.

“How did it hurt your client that Whole Foods wasn’t in the case when, you know, your friend on the other side is pointing out that nothing in the case turned on Whole Foods or its evidence?” Justice Barrett asked.

The lawyer for the couple, Russell S. Post, said that because Whole Foods had been excluded before the trial, the Palmquists had not been able to gather evidence about the role of the grocer. But, he said, it remained an important part of his clients’ claims.

“As a practical matter, Whole Foods has been in this case from Day 1,” Mr. Post said.

He added: “They are here today. Their counsel is sitting here at counsel table because they are a party to this litigation. You can’t pretend otherwise.”

Ms. Harrington acknowledged the lawyer was there but said that did not mean the grocer had been a party at the original trial.