“Timothy Dahl, 35, is suing Yoo-Hoo’s parent company, the Dr Pepper Snapple Group, in federal court because he claims the product’s ‘good for you’ ad slogan is simply not truthful.” The suit is an intended class action. [Gothamist, New York Post, Legal Blog Watch] We’ve covered the many “froot” class action suits alleging that CrunchBerries, Froot Loops, etc. are not particularly healthy things to eat; at least one suit has similarly assailed Cocoa Puffs.
Posts Tagged ‘advertising’
“Another frooty lawsuit”
Something about fruit-flavored snack foods seems to get the class-action lawyers going. A Brooklyn woman is now suing General Mills, saying its Fruit Roll-Ups, popular with kids, are not as healthy as buyers might think from its marketing. [California Civil Justice Blog, Reuters, New York Daily News]
$1 million for study on schools, ads and kids’ food
Want to get a local potato chip company to sponsor the scoreboard at your high school athletic field? Washington may soon be making that decision for you. Adam Cassandra of CNSNews.com quotes me in this piece on the federal government’s deepening involvement in school food issues, and the price it brings in local control.
“The FTC and those GM ads”
I’ve got a new post up (my first, in fact) at Cato at Liberty taking issue with my friends at the Competitive Enterprise Institute over their petition to the Federal Trade Commission asking it to investigate General Motors’s ridiculous bailout ad campaign.
“Yet Another Lawsuit About the Lack of Fruit in ‘Froot Loops'”
Lowering the Bar has details on the latest California case alleging fraud. Food Liability Law Blog wonders whether it and the related Crunchberry suit will make for an “endless loop” of courtroom activity. Earlier here, etc.
P.S. Don’t miss our funny reader comments on this one.
“Do not attempt to install if drunk, pregnant or both. Do not eat antenna.”
Funny warnings from Antenna Direct of Missouri [Consumerist] And Australian prawns (shrimp) are sold with a reassurance that the accompanying promotional material is “not implicitly or explicitly directed at minors, excluded persons, or vulnerable or disadvantaged groups.” [Hey, What Did I Miss? (Institute for Public Affairs)]
“If you purchased Dannon yogurt…”
Legal notice advertisements announce the $35 million giveaway over alleged mismarketing of the Activia and DanActive brands. [New Jersey Lawsuit Reform Alliance] NJLRA’s Ann Marie McDonald:
I eat Dannon yogurt products fairly regularly. I haven’t been dissatisfied yet. It’s difficult to assess whether my body’s defenses have been strengthened by the product itself or the placebo effect. I doubt a $35,000,000 asterisk will make that any clearer. Nevertheless, I’d still be able to participate in this lawsuit, even though I don’t feel deceived and suffered no adverse [effects] from using it.
Scary Stephen King text message worth $175 in class action settlement
Some 60,000 cell-phone users who had signed up to receive “promotional messages” from Nextones.com in order to get a free ringtone got just such a text message on January 18, 2006 advertising a cell-phone-related Stephen King book. This resulted in a class action that was thrown out on the grounds that plaintiffs had agreed to “terms and conditions” permitting such cell-phone advertising; moreover, the federal law prohibiting the use of an automatic telephone dialing system applied only to systems that dialed numbers randomly or sequentially, and the defendants were operating off of a list of opt-in telephone numbers.
The Ninth Circuit reversed. The issue, it said, was not whether phone numbers were sequentially dialed, but whether the equipment used could hypothetically sequentially dial telephone numbers. It also held that there was a disputed issue of fact whether King’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, counted as an “affiliate.”
Faced with the prospect of going to trial and the risk of $500 to $1500 damages assessed for each call (i.e., $30 to $90 million in damages) defendants have settled. There is a settlement fund of $10 million established, plaintiffs can submit claims that will pay $175 (or a pro rata amount if the fund is exhausted) and plaintiffs’ attorneys will ask for $2.725 million from that fund.
This is superficially all well and good, but if the claim response is the all-too-typical 1%, the attorneys may well collect 27 times as much as the class will get. Indeed, assuming that $1 million for notice and administration disappears from the fund, the full $10 million won’t be paid out unless over half the class signs up. There is also a mysterious $250,000 “cy pres” award whose destination is not specified in the notice or in the settlement.
If you’re a class member who received the text message in 2006, congratulations, you can get free money: fill out a claim form before September 20 (and kudos to the parties for allowing claimants to do it online); if you’re a class member who has concerns about the settlement, contact me.
Lindsey Lohan sues E-trade over baby commercial
On Super Bowl Sunday, E-Trade ran one of their annoying talking-baby commercials; this one featured a blond baby named “Lindsay” (the 380th most popular baby-girl name in 2008) that another baby calls a “milk-aholic.” This, says 23-year-old Lindsay Lohan, was a violation of the rights to her “name and characterization”; she’s sued in Nassau County, New York state court, and is asking for $100 million. The advertising agency says Baby Lindsay was named after someone on the ad team. [lawsuit via TMZ; NY Post; Reuters]
Commenter Richard Nieporent reminds us of the similar Spike Lee vs. Spike TV silliness.
Dannon yogurt settlement
Class action lawyering is nothing if not an active culture. [California Civil Justice Blog]