California Code of Regulations
Title 16 - Professional and Vocational Regulations
Division 19 - Structural Pest Control Board
Article 6 - Enforcement
Section 1999.5 - False and Misleading Advertising
Current through Register 2024 Notice Reg. No. 12, March 22, 2024
It is the purpose of this regulation to protect the public from false, misleading, deceptive, or unfair representations or claims concerning structural pest control while enabling the public to receive truthful and legitimate information about those structural pest control products and services and the potential of these products and services to reduce impact to health or the environment.
(a) It is unlawful for any licensee, or any employee thereof, directly or indirectly to make, disseminate, represent, claim, state, or advertise, or cause to be made, disseminated, represented, claimed, stated or advertised by any manner or means whatever, any statement or representation concerning structural pest control, as defined in Business and Professions Code section 8505, which is unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading, and which is known, or which by the exercise of reasonable care should be known, to be unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading.
(b) As used in this section, the terms "make," "disseminate," "represent," "claim," "state," or "advertise" and any of their variants include, but are not limited to any print communications (for example, telephone directories, newspapers, magazines or other publications or books, notices, circulars, pamphlets, letters, handbills, posters, bills, signs, placards, cards, labels, tags, vehicle or equipment signage, window displays, or store signs), electronic communication (for example, radio, television, audio or video tape, telephone, or the Internet), demonstration, direct person-to-person contact, or other means or methods now or hereafter employed to bring structural pest control services, methods, products, pesticides, or devices to the attention of the public for the direct or indirect purpose of performing or offering to perform services for which a license is required by section 8500 and following of the Code.
(c) As used in this section "the exercise of reasonable care" includes a duty to investigate the basis of any statement or representation to assure that the statement or representation is not unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading. The making of a statement or representation without knowledge of its truthfulness breaches the duty to investigate.
(d) Violation of this section occurs at the time an unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading statement or representation is made. Once a violation occurs, subsequent disclosures, caveats, disclaimers, or waivers cannot eliminate it.
(e) The remedies or penalties provided by this section are cumulative to each other and to the remedies or penalties available under all other laws and regulations of this State.
(f) Examples of direct or indirect statements or representations which are unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading include, but are not limited to, the following:
1. New article
6 (section
1999.5) and section filed
10-23-2001; operative 11-22-2001 (Register 2001, No. 43).
2. Change
without regulatory effect amending subsection (f)(1) filed 9-24-2002 pursuant
to section
100, title 1, California Code of
Regulations (Register 2002, No. 39).
3. New introductory paragraph,
amendment of subsections (b), (f)(4)-(6), (f)(11) and (f)(13), repealer of
subsection (f)(14), subsection renumbering and amendment of NOTE filed
7-17-2009; operative 8-16-2009 (Register 2009, No.
29).
Note: Authority cited: Section 8525, Business and Professions Code. Reference: Sections 8648, 17200 and 17500, Business and Professions Code; and Section 260.5, title 16, Code of Federal Regulations (2008).