Coffee makers lost a high-profile preliminary court decision in California recently over their unwillingness to disclose the chemical acrylamide in their product. Under the state’s voter-approved Prop 65, industries with harmful chemicals must disclose those health risks to the public. In this case, acrylamide, formed during coffee bean roasting, is a known animal carcinogen and possible human carcinogen, too.

My colleague Claudia Polsky, who runs Berkeley Law’s environmental law clinic, takes the media and industry to task in a recent Sacramento Bee op-ed for mocking the preliminary ruling:

Litigation motivates industries otherwise unresponsive to toxicity data; with acrylamide in processed foods, it has happened already. Litigation to compel the potato chip industry to warn about high acrylamide levels in its product nearly a decade ago was met with broad media ridicule – only to trigger changes in potato chip manufacture that lowered acrylamide levels, obviated the need to warn, and induced a press mea culpa. Proposition 65 enforcement can similarly help us have our coffee and improve it too.

It’s easy to demagogue a court case like this as another example of litigation run amok. But often the underlying facts are more nuanced than the headlines might indicate, and the ultimate benefits for society under-appreciated.

This case still has a ways to go before any final decisions are reached. And in the worst case scenario for industry, they’ll simply have to disclose the chemical, not eliminate it. So coffee drinkers don’t need to panic — unless they happen to be worried about the health effects of acrylamide.