After the Juice Wars: The Post-POM Wonderful Legal Landscape and its Implications for FDA-Regulated Industries

Rachel Simon

ABSTRACT

Five years have passed since POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co. established that the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) does not preclude Lanham Act claims targeting FDA-regulated beverages. Few scholars, however, have evaluated the implications of post-POM Wonderful doctrinal developments for FDA-supervised industries. This paper fills that gap, demonstrating that courts have consistently invoked POM Wonderful to apply a presumption against the preclusion of false advertising claims across all FDCA-covered markets. The opinion has accordingly restricted competitors’ ability to defeat such challenges in the early litigation stages, yielding a legal landscape far friendlier to prospective Lanham Act plaintiffs.