The Parent’s Accountability and Child Protection Act: remedies.

Plain English Breakdown

The bill summary and digest are incomplete and lack specific details about penalties and enforcement procedures.

Parent’s Accountability and Child Protection Act: Remedies

This act allows parents to sue businesses that sell illegal products to minors, increases penalties for online businesses, and requires courts to suspend operations of violators.

What This Bill Does

• Adds a civil penalty for each minor who uses an illegal product or service sold by a business.
• Allows parents or legal guardians to bring lawsuits against businesses that sell illegal products to minors.
• Increases the maximum civil penalty for online businesses that violate the act, up to ten or twenty times the standard limit of $35,000.
• Requires courts to suspend operations of businesses that do not follow injunctions issued to enforce the act.

Who It Names or Affects

• Businesses and individuals selling illegal products or services to minors.
• Parents and guardians of minors who have been victims of such sales.
• Courts handling cases related to the sale of illegal products to minors.

Terms To Know

Civil penalty

A fine imposed by a court for breaking a law or regulation.

Injunction

An order from a court telling someone to stop doing something illegal or harmful.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify the exact amount of penalties beyond stating they can be up to ten or twenty times the standard limit.
• It is unclear how courts will determine if businesses have taken reasonable steps to ensure purchasers are of legal age.
• The effective date for this act has not been set.

Official Summary Text

SB 659, as amended, Reyes.
The Parent’s Accountability and Child Protection Act: remedies.
Existing law, the Parent’s Accountability and Child Protection Act, requires a person or business that seeks to sell a specified product or service that is illegal under state law to sell to a minor to take reasonable steps to ensure that the purchaser is of legal age at the time of purchase or delivery, as prescribed. The act, in an action brought by a public prosecutor, subjects a business or person that violates the act to at least a $7,500 civil penalty for each violation. Existing law requires that the amount in controversy not exceed $35,000 for a limited civil case.
This
bill would additionally subject the business or person to the civil penalty for each minor user of the product or service and in an action brought by a parent or legal guardian of a minor. The bill would increase the
bill, in addition to any other remedy available under law, in an action brought by a public prosecutor or a parent or legal guardian of a minor who has acquired the product or service, would subject an online business, as defined, that violates the above-described provisions to a
civil penalty
to
of
the maximum amount in controversy for a limited civil case, or 10 or 20 times that amount, as
specified.
The bill would specify that the civil penalty is in addition to any other available legal remedy. The bill would also require a court to suspend a business or person that violates an injunction issued to enforce the act from conducting business, as specified.
specified, for each violation and each minor user of the product or service.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF