Chipotle GMO Proposed Class Action to Continue

A Florida federal court has denied Chipotle’s motion to dismiss a putative
class action alleging the company misrepresents its food as free of genetically
modified organisms (GMOs) despite selling meat produced from
animals fed GMOs. Reilly v. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., No. 15-23425
(S.D. Fla., order entered April 20, 2016). Chipotle argued that the plaintiff
had no standing to sue because she did not specify which products
she purchased; the court found she had sufficiently pleaded her claims to
support standing for her consumer-protection claims, but not her request
for an injunction. Chipotle also challenged the plaintiff’s understanding
of “non-GMO” as “nonsensical,” but the “reasonableness of her definition,
upon which her interpretation of Chipotle’s advertisements is based,
is a question better decided upon examination of the evidence,” the court
held. Accordingly, it granted Chipotle’s motion to dismiss the request for
injunctive relief but denied it as to the rest of the claims.

Issue 601