Published
October 12, 2026
People who bought four Orgain Organic Vegan protein powders on Amazon.com may be covered by a proposed class action alleging Amazon marketed them as clean and high quality without disclosing lead, cadmium and arsenic. No class has been certified and there is nothing to file yet.
Allegations Only · No Settlement Yet
This article describes a class action complaint. The statements below are unproven allegations, including the plaintiff’s own product-testing results. Amazon.com, Inc. has not been found liable, there is no certified class, and nothing to claim at this time. Orgain is not a defendant in this case. This page is informational and is not legal advice.
What Is This About?
Amazon.com, Inc. is facing a proposed class action alleging that it sold four Orgain Organic Vegan protein powders on Amazon.com through product pages that present them as clean and high quality while saying nothing about lead, cadmium or arsenic. The case, Cada v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 2:26-cv-02704, was filed July 31, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, with Hecht Partners also listed as counsel for the named plaintiff. It is a lawsuit, not a settlement: there is no fund, no claim form and no deadline.Orgain, the brand that makes the powders, is not a defendant. The complaint targets Amazon alone, on the theory that Amazon sells these products itself as a first-party retailer, controls the content of the product detail pages shoppers see, and is responsible for the overall impression those pages create. The complaint refers to the four powders as the “Contaminated Products”; that is the plaintiff’s label, and the heavy-metal figures behind it come from testing commissioned by the plaintiff’s lawyers and from published reports. Amazon has not yet responded in court, and none of the allegations has been proven.
The suit was filed about three weeks after a parallel case over Orgain protein powder against Costco, brought in the same court by the same law firms. How the two differ is explained below.
Free settlement alerts
Get notified when new class actions open to claims
Join thousands of readers who get the latest class action settlements you may qualify for — delivered straight to your inbox.
Status
Complaint Filed
filed July 31, 2026 · W.D. Wash. · Amazon’s response due October 26, 2026 · allegations only
What’s Alleged
“Clean” Product Pages That Never Mention Heavy Metals
plaintiff’s testing reports lead up to 37.1 ppb, cadmium up to 87.9 ppb and arsenic up to 18.8 ppb · unproven
Products
Four Orgain Organic Vegan Protein Powders Bought on Amazon.com
Vegan Protein and Vegan Protein + 50 Superfoods · Vanilla Bean and Creamy Chocolate Fudge · Orgain is not a defendant
Can I Claim?
No — Nothing to File Yet
no settlement, no fund and no claim form · class not certified
What Amazon’s Product Pages Say, According to the Complaint
The four products, as the complaint defines them, are Orgain Organic Vegan Protein + 50 Superfoods Powder in Creamy Chocolate Fudge and in Vanilla Bean, and Orgain Organic Vegan Protein Powder in Vanilla Bean and in Creamy Chocolate Fudge. In the body of the complaint the same products appear under the names used on their Amazon listings, Orgain Organic Plant-Based Protein and Plant-Based Protein + 50 Superfoods. The complaint reserves the right to add other products later.The complaint reproduces the Amazon detail page for each product and catalogs the statements on them in an appendix. They include “Cleaner Ingredients,” “Higher Standards,” “Quality Ingredients,” “Non-GMO,” “USDA Organic,” “#1 plant protein powder brand,” “Feel Good Energy” and “The Power of Clean,” along with brand copy promising “good, clean nutrition.” According to the complaint, some of those phrases appear in Amazon’s own description fields, while others appear in images of the packaging, the ingredient panel and the manufacturer’s marketing displayed on the same pages. Its argument is that the page as a whole creates an impression of purity that the presence of heavy metals contradicts, and that nothing on it discloses them.
The complaint makes a narrower point about the USDA Organic seal. Organic certification governs synthetic pesticides, fertilizers and genetically modified ingredients; it does not test for or certify the absence of heavy metals. The complaint alleges that the seal, displayed alongside the “clean” marketing and without any heavy-metal disclosure, produces a misleading net impression of safety.
The case against Amazon rather than the brand rests on a few specific allegations. The complaint says Amazon itself, not a third-party seller, lists, sells, ships and delivers these four products. It points to Amazon’s Business Solutions Agreement, which it says gives Amazon control over the format of listings and requires sellers to supply any warnings or disclaimers required by law, and it alleges Amazon never required Orgain to test for heavy metals or post results on the pages. It also cites a July 2024 decision of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission finding that Amazon acts as a distributor of products shipped through Fulfillment by Amazon, which the complaint uses to argue that Amazon is more than a passive platform.
The Testing the Complaint Relies On
The heavy-metal figures in the case come from three sources. All of them are the plaintiff’s evidence, not findings by a court or regulator.The first is laboratory testing commissioned by the plaintiff’s lawyers. The complaint reports the concentrations below, in parts per billion, and says confirmatory testing by Microbac Laboratories, which it describes as an ISO/IEC 17025-accredited lab, corroborated the presence of heavy metals. It says cadmium was detected in every sample tested and lead in multiple samples across different lots and Amazon locations.
| Product | Lead | Cadmium | Arsenic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vegan Protein + 50 Superfoods, Vanilla Bean | 37.1 | 32.2 | 17.3 |
| Vegan Protein + 50 Superfoods, Chocolate Fudge | 18.2 | 84.8 | 15.2 |
| Vegan Protein Powder, Vanilla Bean | 13.2 | 32.2 | 18.8 |
| Vegan Protein Powder, Chocolate Fudge | 26 | 87.9 | 14.1 |
The complaint separately states that one sample, labeled B1, measured 3.37 micrograms of lead per serving, which it says is about 674 percent above the 0.5-microgram daily level California uses under Proposition 65 to decide whether a lead warning is required. It gives the corresponding Proposition 65 levels for the other two metals as 4.1 micrograms per day for cadmium and 10 micrograms per day for inorganic arsenic. A Proposition 65 level is a warning trigger, not a federal safety limit, and exceeding it is not by itself a finding that a product is unsafe or unlawful to sell.
The other two sources are published studies the complaint cites. According to the complaint, a January 2025 Clean Label Project study found that 79 percent of the organic protein powders it tested exceeded the Proposition 65 lead level, and an October 2025 Consumer Reports investigation rated Orgain Organic Plant-Based Protein Powder in Vanilla Bean at 143 percent of its level of concern for lead, categorizing it as okay to eat occasionally with a limit of about 4¾ servings a week. The complaint adds that Consumer Reports found plant-based powders averaged about nine times more lead than dairy-based ones.
There is no federal limit for heavy metals in protein powder. The complaint itself says the FDA does not review or approve dietary supplements before they are sold, has set no maximum levels for lead, cadmium or arsenic in protein powders, and has no rule requiring heavy-metal content on supplement labels. The benchmarks it cites for comparison, such as the limits for bottled water and juice, apply to other products. The broader wave of suits over these issues is tracked on the protein powder heavy-metals lawsuit overview.
The Legal Claims, and the Defenses Amazon Could Raise
The complaint pleads two counts, both under Washington law and both on behalf of a nationwide class:• Violation of the Washington Consumer Protection Act, RCW 19.86.020, which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices in trade or commerce. The complaint alleges Amazon’s decisions to sell the products and to approve the website content describing them were made at its Seattle headquarters.
• Fraudulent concealment under Washington law, alleging that Amazon, as the seller, had a duty to disclose the heavy metals and concealed them while promoting purity-related attributes.
The complaint argues in advance against federal preemption. It states that the plaintiff does not seek to enforce the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act or impose labeling requirements beyond it, and that the claims target Amazon’s voluntary marketing statements. It also argues the limitations period was tolled because buyers could not detect heavy metals without laboratory testing.
Amazon has not filed a response, and nothing in the record states its position. Defendants in retailer and heavy-metal labeling cases commonly contest several points this complaint puts at issue: whether a retailer is responsible for brand-supplied packaging images and marketing copy displayed on its pages; whether statements such as “organic,” “non-GMO” or “higher standards” are accurate or too general to be actionable; whether trace levels that no federal rule limits can make a product’s marketing misleading to a reasonable consumer; whether the plaintiff’s testing is reliable and representative of what was sold; and whether federal law preempts the claims. A nationwide class pleaded under a single state’s consumer protection statute can also raise choice-of-law questions at class certification. None of these issues has been decided.
How This Case Differs From the Costco Orgain Lawsuit
Barton v. Costco Wholesale Corporation, No. 2:26-cv-02364, filed July 7, 2026 in the same court, makes a closely related argument against a different retailer. Both suits leave Orgain out as a defendant, both are brought by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro and Hecht Partners, and both lead with the Washington Consumer Protection Act. The main differences:• Products. The Costco case names two powders, Orgain Organic Protein Powder in Vanilla Bean and Creamy Chocolate Fudge. The Amazon case names four, including the Protein + 50 Superfoods versions.
• Testing data. The Costco case reports lead, cadmium and arsenic per serving. The Amazon complaint’s table reports concentrations in parts per billion for each of its four products.
• Plaintiffs, classes and claims. The Costco case has seven named plaintiffs from six states, a nationwide class plus six state subclasses, and twelve counts under the laws of Washington, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio and Texas. The Amazon case has one named plaintiff, a Florida resident, a single nationwide class and two counts under Washington law.
• The retailer theory. The Costco case centers on Costco’s point-of-sale marketing in its warehouses and on Costco.com. The Amazon case centers on Amazon’s online product detail pages, its role as the first-party seller and its contractual control over listings.
Each proposed class is limited to purchases from that case’s defendant, and neither class has been certified. A third case, over children’s mineral sunscreen, makes a similar listing-based argument against Amazon in the same court: the Amazon kids sunscreen heavy-metals lawsuit.
Who Would Be Covered, and What the Suit Seeks
The proposed nationwide class is all persons who, from the beginning of the applicable limitations period to the present, bought any of the four products from Amazon.com for household use and not for resale. Excluded are Amazon and its officers, directors, employees, agents and affiliates; the judges assigned to the case and their immediate families; anyone who timely opts out; and any entity Amazon controls. There are no state subclasses. The complaint asserts that class members can be identified from Amazon’s sales records.No class has been certified, which means no court has decided whether the case can go forward on behalf of anyone other than the named plaintiff. Proposed class definitions often change as a case develops.
The complaint asks the court to certify the class and to award actual damages, treble damages up to the maximum the Washington Consumer Protection Act allows, attorneys’ fees, costs and interest; the fraudulent-concealment count also seeks punitive damages. It asks for an injunction requiring Amazon to disclose the presence and levels of lead, cadmium and arsenic in these products on Amazon.com and to stop selling them without that disclosure. The plaintiff demands a jury trial.
The damages theory is a price premium. The complaint lists the Orgain powders at $0.91 to $1.06 per ounce and compares them with four whey and mass-gainer powders priced at $0.42 to $0.78 per ounce that it says tested at low or non-detectable heavy-metal levels; none of those comparison products is described as plant-based. The named plaintiff says she bought about 36 containers between 2022 and 2026 at roughly $30 each. All of this is relief requested on unproven allegations, and nothing has been awarded.
What Happens Next
The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Tana Lin. On October 8, 2026, the court granted a stipulated motion extending Amazon’s deadline to respond to the complaint to October 26, 2026. The same order paused the deadline for the parties’ Rule 26(f) conference and the related early discovery deadlines. Other docket entries filed so far carry no public description.Amazon’s response could be an answer or a motion to dismiss. If the case survives a dismissal motion, it would move into discovery and, later, a motion for class certification. Each of those stages can take months, and a case like this can be narrowed, dismissed or settled along the way. OpenClassActions.com will update this page after a significant ruling or if a settlement with a claim process is announced.
Do I Need to Do Anything Right Now?
Nothing is required at this stage, because there is no claim process. There is no settlement, no claim form and no deadline, and Amazon customers are not asked to register or sign up for anything. If the court certifies a class or the parties reach a settlement, a court-approved notice would explain who is included, what is available and how to take part.The case is an economic one about disclosure and price. The named plaintiff does not allege that the products made anyone sick, the complaint does not describe any recall, and no court or regulator has found the four powders unsafe. Questions about a person’s own health or exposure are medical questions outside the scope of this page.
Questions
Is there an Amazon Orgain protein powder settlement?
There is no settlement. Cada v. Amazon.com, Inc. is a proposed class action filed July 31, 2026 in the Western District of Washington. There is no settlement fund, no claim form and no deadline. Amazon has not been found liable and no class has been certified.
Is Orgain a defendant in the Amazon lawsuit?
Orgain is not a defendant. Amazon.com, Inc. is the only defendant. The complaint quotes Orgain marketing that appears on Amazon’s product pages, but its theory is that Amazon, as the first-party seller that controls those pages, is responsible for what they convey and what they leave out.
Which Orgain products are named in the Amazon lawsuit?
Four products bought on Amazon.com: Orgain Organic Vegan Protein + 50 Superfoods Powder in Creamy Chocolate Fudge and in Vanilla Bean, and Orgain Organic Vegan Protein Powder in Vanilla Bean and in Creamy Chocolate Fudge. The Amazon listings call them Orgain Organic Plant-Based Protein. The complaint reserves the right to add products.
How is the Amazon case different from the Costco Orgain lawsuit?
Both cases were filed in the same federal court by the same law firms and leave Orgain out as a defendant. The Costco case names two Orgain powders, seven plaintiffs, six state subclasses and twelve counts. The Amazon case names four powders, one plaintiff, a single nationwide class and two counts under Washington law, and it focuses on Amazon’s control of its online product detail pages.
What does the testing in the Amazon lawsuit show?
According to the complaint, testing commissioned by the plaintiff’s counsel found lead from 13.2 to 37.1 parts per billion, cadmium from 32.2 to 87.9 parts per billion and arsenic from 14.1 to 18.8 parts per billion across the four products. These are the plaintiff’s figures; no court or regulator has evaluated them, and there is no federal limit for heavy metals in protein powder.
Has Orgain protein powder been recalled?
The complaint does not describe any recall of the four products, and no court or regulator has found them unsafe. The case is an economic one: it seeks money and a disclosure order for buyers who say they overpaid, and it does not allege that anyone was physically harmed.
Sources
• Class Action Complaint, Cada v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 2:26-cv-02704 (W.D. Wash., filed July 31, 2026)• CourtListener — docket for Cada v. Amazon.com, Inc., including the October 8, 2026 order extending Amazon’s response deadline (Dkt. 17)
• Washington Consumer Protection Act, RCW chapter 19.86
• California OEHHA — Proposition 65 No Significant Risk Levels and Maximum Allowable Dose Levels
• Consumer Reports — Protein Powders and Shakes Contain High Levels of Lead (October 2025)
• Clean Label Project — 2025 protein powder heavy-metals study
• U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, In the Matter of Amazon.com, Inc., CPSC Docket No. 21-2, Decision and Order (July 29, 2024), as cited in the complaint.
About This Page
This page summarizes the class action complaint in Cada v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 2:26-cv-02704 (W.D. Wash.). OpenClassActions.com is a consumer news and information site, not a law firm, and is not affiliated with the plaintiff’s counsel or Amazon. The allegations have not been proven in court. This article is general information about the case. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
For more class actions keep scrolling below.
Status
Complaint Filed — Allegations Only
Case Title
Cada v. Amazon.com, Inc.
Case Number
2:26-cv-02704
Court
U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington (Seattle)
Date Filed
July 31, 2026
Defendant
Amazon.com, Inc. (Orgain is not a defendant)
Products or Conduct
Orgain Organic Vegan Protein and Vegan Protein + 50 Superfoods powders (Vanilla Bean, Creamy Chocolate Fudge) sold on Amazon.com without heavy-metal disclosure
Claims
Washington Consumer Protection Act; fraudulent concealment (Washington law)
Class Status
Not certified — nationwide class proposed
Read the Complaint (PDF)
Class Action Complaint
View the Docket on CourtListener
CourtListener Docket
