There Are Two Driscoll's PFAS Lawsuits, Not One. Neither Mentions Fluopyram. And Neither Claims a Single U.S. Limit Was Exceeded — Because None Was.

Most of the coverage describes one lawsuit. There are two, in the same courthouse, and they are proceeding separately.

Driscoll's asked the court on July 8 to treat them as related. The Washington plaintiff opposed that on July 13. They remain before two different district judges.

The number floating around in the coverage — 26CV02011 — is the state court case number the Washington case had before removal. Citing it today points at a docket that no longer runs the case.

The defendant is Driscoll's, Inc., a California corporation in Watsonville, described in the complaint as formerly known as Driscoll Strawberry Associates, Inc. Same legal entity, old name.

We searched both complaints in full text. fluopyram: zero hits. trifluoroacetic and TFA: zero hits. Neither substance is part of either case.

What the filings actually list are eight compounds they label “PFAS-Laden Pesticides,” with the residue levels the blog test reported:

Four further residues are listed separately and are not claimed to be PFAS: cyprodinil 125 ppb, pyrimethanil 310 ppb, quinoxyfen 45 ppb and tetrahydrophthalimide 302 ppb. Twelve residues in total; eight of them carry the PFAS label in the pleading.

The definition the complaints use is deliberately broad — “fluorine is an atomic element present in the molecular structure of PFAS.” Under that reading, any fluorine-containing active ingredient qualifies. Whether a court accepts it is the whole case, and it is genuinely unsettled: EPA's own working definition, set by its Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics in 2023, requires two adjacent fully fluorinated carbons and so excludes single fluorinated carbons outright; the agency puts it in as many words: “EPA-approved single fluorinated compounds are not forever chemicals, they are not PFAS.” Maine, Minnesota and California each define PFAS in their own statutes as anything with at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom, which sweeps these compounds in. There is no single binding federal definition to appeal to.

The residue figures in both complaints trace to a single source: a May 12, 2026 post on the consumer site Mamavation, which sent two boxes of Driscoll's strawberries — organic and conventional — for screening on May 4, 2026 against a panel of more than 500 pesticides. The organic berries came back non-detect; every figure in the complaints comes from the conventional box.

The laboratory is described only as “our EPA-certified laboratory.” It is not named, and the analytical method is not disclosed. The results were reviewed by Dr. Craig Downs of Haereticus Environmental Laboratory.

This matters more than it might sound, because it is the same soft spot that sank most of the earlier PFAS consumer cases. In our reading of the filings, none of the named plaintiffs had their own berries tested. The complaint says they learned of the residues “from news sources, including social media posts.”

Read carefully, neither case alleges anyone was harmed, and neither alleges a U.S. legal limit was broken. What they allege is that Driscoll's said things like “Only the Finest Berries,” “freshest, safest, [and] most flavorful berries,” “grown, harvested and shipped with the highest standards of care possible” and “naturally grown” without disclosing the residues — and that buyers paid a premium they would not otherwise have paid.

The comparisons in the pleading are to foreign standards — EU, Taiwan, Chile, Korea, Russia. And then the complaint disclaims them: “The foreign standards and limits are not alleged herein as independent legal duties governing Defendant's conduct in the United States.”

The causes of action are state consumer-protection statutes: Illinois' Consumer Fraud Act, New York General Business Law §§ 349 and 350, the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act and Massachusetts Chapter 93A in the federal case; California's Unfair Competition Law, False Advertising Law, Environmental Marketing Claims Act (§ 17580) and Consumers Legal Remedies Act in the removed one. Both demand a jury.

Driscoll's says the claims are “without merit,” that “food safety, quality, and integrity are fundamental to who we are,” and that it and its independent grower partners “operate in full compliance with applicable US federal, state and local pesticide and food-safety regulations.”

This confusion runs through almost every article on the subject, so it is worth being blunt about.

There is no enforceable FDA or EPA limit for PFAS in food. The FDA's own position on its testing program is that it “has no indication that these substances, at the levels found in the limited sampling, present a human health concern.” The widely quoted 4 parts per trillion for PFOA and PFOS is a drinking water standard under the Safe Drinking Water Act. It has nothing to do with strawberries.

What does exist for food is the pesticide tolerance system: EPA sets tolerances under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and FDA enforces them on produce — exceed one and the food is legally adulterated. USDA's Pesticide Data Program measures compliance; in its 2024 program, over 99 percent of 9,872 samples were under the EPA tolerances. Nothing in either complaint alleges a tolerance was exceeded here.

This is the part a reader deciding whether to care should see. PFAS consumer class actions have a poor record, and they mostly fail on standing and testing methodology rather than on the meaning of “PFAS.”

Read that table again and the pattern is not that plaintiffs lose on the meaning of “PFAS.” It is that they lose, or give up, on whether the thing they bought was ever tested. Not one of these cases reached a jury.

Read that table again and the pattern is not that plaintiffs lose on the meaning of “PFAS.” It is that they lose, or give up, on whether the thing they bought was ever tested. Not one of these cases reached a jury.

One structural difference cuts in the plaintiffs' favour here: Driscoll's is not a total-organic-fluorine case. The complaints name specific active ingredients at specific parts-per-billion levels from targeted residue analysis, which is exactly the evidentiary gap that killed Bounthon. The Lurenz and Krakauer problem remains, though: nobody tested the berries the plaintiffs actually bought.

And as far as we can find, no PFAS consumer class action over pesticide residues on fresh fruit has been brought before. The earlier cases were about packaging, cosmetics, textiles and drinks. In that narrow sense this is new ground.

There is no settlement. No claim form. No fund. No deadline. Both cases are pending, neither has a certified class, and no settlement motion appears on either docket. Any site offering you a “Driscoll's claim form” today is not describing anything that exists.

If a class is later certified and a settlement later reached, purchasers in the covered states would be notified through a court-approved notice program — that is the point at which a claim form appears, and it is typically years out. Keeping a receipt costs nothing; most food class settlements pay a small amount without one and more with.

What we would not do is stop eating strawberries on the strength of a two-clamshell screening whose laboratory has not been named. That is not a defence of Driscoll's; it is what the record supports.

One thing could change the shape of all this before either conference. On August 7, 2026 the Washington plaintiff moved to send her case back to the California state court it was removed from. If that succeeds, the two cases end up in two different court systems.

One thing could change the shape of all this before either conference. On August 7, 2026 the Washington plaintiff moved to send her case back to the California state court it was removed from. If that succeeds, the two cases end up in two different court systems.

We will update this page after the initial case management conferences, currently set for October 1 and October 7, 2026.