Cheeseburger Bills: State Laws to Limit Future Obesity-Related Public Health Litigation

INTRODUCTION: From 2003 to 2009, 24 states passed legislation, commonly referred to as “cheeseburger bills,” to protect the food industry from certain kinds of lawsuits seeking to recover obesity-related damages. This presentation will describe cheeseburger bills; discuss their potential impact on future efforts to challenge food industry tactics that contribute to the obesity epidemic; and summarize lessons learned for public health from the widespread passage of state cheeseburger bills. METHODS: Legal research was conducted to gather enacted cheeseburger bills and analyze them to determine the content of the bills and their potential impact on future obesity-related litigation. RESULTS: The majority of cheeseburger bills (17 states) confer blanket civil immunity from claims seeking to recover obesity-related damages and apply heightened substantive and procedural requirements even to future obesity-related claims alleging deception. DISCUSSION: The obesity epidemic is driven by a range of factors related to the food environment, food marketing and processed food formulation that mirror tactics employed by the tobacco industry. While framed as necessary to protect the food industry from frivolous litigation, cheeseburger bills were intended to limit future public health efforts to use litigation to expose internal industry documents, secure monetary settlements for the states and restrict deceptive advertising. The public acceptance of litigation as a way to redress the harms caused by tobacco products has not yet translated to the obesity epidemic. The widespread passage of cheeseburger bills exemplifies how a state-by-state approach to prevent obesity-related public health efforts can be very effective.