Federal Court Certifies Class Action Against Yogurt Maker
A federal court has certified class claims against General Mills alleging that the company’s advertising for its premium-priced Yo-Plus® yogurt violates the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act because the product does not provide any digestive health benefits that cannot be obtained from eating normal yogurt. Fitzpatrick v. General Mills, Inc., No. 09-60412 (S.D. Fla., decided January 11, 2010).
The named plaintiff claimed that the company’s ads and promotional materials convinced her to try the product and that she consumed it on a regular basis for about a year. She claimed that her digestive health was the same before, during and after eating Yo-Plus® and thus, the company’s claims for digestive health benefits beyond those provided by normal yogurt are false, misleading and likely to deceive the public. She also alleged breach of express warranty and sought to certify a class of “[a]ll persons who purchased YoPlus in the State of Florida.”
The court’s legal analysis focuses primarily on the predominance requirement of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3). General Mills argued that common issues do not predominate because (i) each plaintiff was exposed to a mix of advertising statements, and the truthfulness of each must be separately assessed; (ii) different plaintiffs may have purchased the product for different reasons, including those completely unrelated to its purported health benefits; and (iii) the scope of damages will vary among plaintiffs, some of whom may have experienced the expected digestive health benefit. The court disagreed with each contention and concluded that individual issues do not predominate as to the claim raised under the state consumer protection statute. Finding that the express warranty claim requires individualized proof, however, the court refused to certify it.
According to the court, “the dispute centers on the scientifically complex question of whether Yo-Plus provides a digestive health benefit, and if General Mills had an adequate basis to disseminate that message to Florida consumers. It is this thorny issue—rife with contested, bleeding-edge scientific evidence—that would overwhelmingly dominate (and hence preclude) every plaintiff’s case were they forced to litigate independently.”
