Leslie A. Brueckner

Sprietsma: A Unanimous Supreme Court

The case arose from a July 10, 1995 boating incident on an inland lake crossing the Kentucky–Tennessee border. An eighteen-foot ski boat carried a 115-horsepower Mercury Marine outboard motor without a propeller guard, and the resulting Illinois product-liability action met the argument that federal law had displaced it: the Coast Guard had considered a nationwide propeller-guard rule and declined to adopt one.

Brueckner, representing Rex Sprietsma, focused the federal question on what the Coast Guard had actually decided after its eighteen-month study — that the available data did not justify a universal rule, and that no single guard then appeared suitable for every boat and motor. A decision not to regulate everything, she argued, is not a decision that nothing may be required; and the Federal Boat Safety Act contained a saving clause preserving common-law liability.

On December 3, 2002, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Illinois Supreme Court, rejecting both express and implied preemption. The saving clause preserved common-law claims, and the Coast Guard's regulatory choice created no conflicting federal policy.

Three Wins in the California Supreme Court

Brueckner has argued and won a run of consumer and product cases in California's highest court that reshaped state law.

In T.H. v. Novartis, she led the appeal after a trial court sustained Novartis's demurrer in a warning case involving generic terbutaline. Federal law required generic manufacturers to copy the brand-name label, while only the brand-name application holder could strengthen a warning — and Novartis had controlled the label for brand-name Brethine until 2001, six years before the generic prescription at issue. In 2017, the California Supreme Court held that the plaintiffs could plead negligence and negligent misrepresentation against the company that controlled the warning generic manufacturers were legally required to reproduce, that the duty could reach patients foreseeably dispensed the generic equivalent, and that it could continue after transfer of the brand if the earlier label remained in circulation. The decision broke with more than ninety rulings from courts across the country and became the first standing state supreme court decision in the nation to recognize the theory. For the argument, Brueckner and co-counsel Ben Siminou received the Pound Civil Justice Institute's Appellate Advocacy Award, the national honor for excellence in appellate advocacy.

In Quesada v. Herb Thyme Farms, she represented a consumer challenging the sale of conventionally grown products under a 100-percent-organic label — the producer operated one certified-organic farm and larger conventional farms, with products handled in the same packing facility, while consumers paid the organic premium. In 2015, the court unanimously reversed judgment on the pleadings and held that the federal Organic Foods Production Act did not preempt California fraud, unfair-competition, and false-advertising remedies for alleged intentional misuse of the organic label.

In Noel v. Thrifty Payless, she argued a proposed class action over Ready Set Pool packaging that appeared to show several adults fitting inside the inflatable pool. Discovery had identified 20,752 California sales, 2,479 returns, and $949,279.34 in revenue. In July 2019, the court unanimously reversed the lower courts and held that ascertainability requires an objective class definition and common transactional facts — not a completed customer-identification mechanism at certification. The shared package representation and common sales records were enough to define the class.

Standing, Reporting Duties, and Newsgathering

In Cottrell v. Alcon Laboratories, prescription-eye-drop users alleged that bottle design dispensed unusable excess medication: an adult eye holds roughly seven to ten microliters, while the bottles dispensed drops two or three times larger, sending the remainder down the cheek or into the tear duct. One pricing example calculated more than $1,100 in medicine made unusable each year. After the district court found the claimed financial injury too speculative, Brueckner helped present the appeal through measurements, dosing research, purchasing frequency, and annual cost. In October 2017, the Third Circuit issued a precedential reversal: money spent on medicine made unusable by bottle design is a concrete Article III injury at the pleading stage.

In Glover v. Bausch & Lomb, she joined the plaintiffs' briefing team on alleged failures to report adverse events and satisfy postapproval requirements for Trulign lenses — the reporting path by which postapproval safety information reaches the FDA and, through the regulatory process, prescribing surgeons. After the Second Circuit certified the controlling questions, the Connecticut Supreme Court held in June 2022 that the Connecticut Product Liability Act recognizes negligence and failure-to-warn claims based on such failures, and the federal court later allowed the core theories to proceed.

She also helped launch and develop the constitutional challenge to North Carolina's Property Protection Act for PETA and a coalition of food-safety, animal-welfare, worker-accountability, and public-interest organizations whose undercover investigations were intended for publication. In February 2023, the Fourth Circuit enjoined North Carolina from applying the Act to PETA's protected newsgathering activities, and the Supreme Court declined review that October.

Hardeman: Holding the Roundup Judgment

Edwin Hardeman's case became the first bellwether trial in the federal Roundup multidistrict litigation. The jury awarded $5.27 million in compensatory damages and $75 million in punitive damages, reduced in the final judgment to $20 million in punitives.

Brueckner joined Hardeman's appellate team. In 2021, the Ninth Circuit upheld the causation evidence and liability findings, rejected Monsanto's preemption argument under the governing law, and affirmed the $20 million punitive award. The Supreme Court denied review in June 2022, leaving the first Roundup trial judgment permanently intact.

2,600 Wells

Brueckner represented West Virginia landowners in litigation over thousands of nonproducing oil and gas wells left unplugged by current and former operators. When the defendants sought immediate review of the district court's required-party ruling — arguing the state environmental agency was indispensable — Brueckner argued for the landowners in the Fourth Circuit, which held in August 2024 that the ruling did not qualify for the collateral-order exception and dismissed the appeal, keeping the action in the trial court.

The settlement received final approval in May 2025. Diversified Energy agreed to plug 2,600 wells across West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee through 2034 — more than four times the 580 wells covered by prior agency schedules — with a process for landowners to flag urgent health, safety, or environmental concerns.

Appellate Practice and Teaching

Brueckner graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1983 and Harvard Law School in 1987. She spent nearly three decades at Public Justice, working across constitutional law, consumer protection, antitrust, bankruptcy, class actions, environmental litigation, food systems, medical products, and mass torts, and founded the organization's Food Project.

She joined Singleton Schreiber as a partner in September 2024, helping lead its Appellate and Supreme Court Practice Group, and has taught appellate advocacy at Georgetown University Law Center and American University Washington College of Law. Her honors include the Pound Civil Justice Institute's Appellate Advocacy Award and the Western Trial Lawyers Association's Dale Haralson Fallout Award.