POM Wonderful Seeks Review of Adverse Jury Determination on Damages
A federal jury agreed with POM Wonderful LLC that Welch Foods, Inc. developed intentionally confusing and misleading marketing and labeling for its White Grape Pomegranate juice product to take advantage of the market POM created for pomegranate juice, but determined that POM did not lose sales because of Welch’s conduct. POM Wonderful LLC v. Welch Foods Inc., No. 09-00567 (C.D. Cal., verdict reached September 13, 2010). More details about the case appear in Issue 290 of this Update.
POM has reportedly asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to review the
verdict, claiming that the lower court’s decision to try the case in two phases
led the company to refrain from introducing evidence about lost sales during
the first phase, which focused on liability. According to a news source, the
company requested before the verdict that the court not instruct the jury
to decide whether POM had lost sales, but the court refused. The court also
apparently refused to re-open POM’s case in chief to allow the introduction of
lost-sales evidence. See The National Law Journal, May 10, 2011.
