Consumer Fraud Suit Against Honey Maker Dismissed with Prejudice

A federal court in California has dismissed statutory and common law claims
filed in a putative class action against Sioux Honey Association Cooperative,
alleging that the company falsely labels its Sue Bee Clover Honey® product
as “honey,” despite removing the pollen from the product. Ross v. Sioux Honey
Ass’n Coop., No. 12-1645 (N.D. Cal., decided January 14, 2013). The
court found the claims preempted or insufficiently pleaded in the plaintiff’s
third amended complaint and, concluding that any further amendment
would be futile, granted the motion to dismiss with prejudice.

So ruling, the court declined to rule that the plaintiff lacked standing to bring the suit, finding that her pleadings satisfied the requirements of Kwikset Corp. v. Superior Court, 51 Cal. 4th 310 (2011), in which the California Supreme Court recognized that allegations of economic injury arising from reliance on a product manufacturer’s alleged misrepresentations satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement for standing under Article III.

The court determined that the plaintiff failed to plead facts sufficient to
show that pollen is a “characterizing component” of honey “such that its
removal must be noted on an affixed label” under state or federal law and
that she failed to plead facts sufficient “to establish that pollen is a valuable
constituent of honey. Her amended complaint fails to allege any factual
support for her belief that an ordinary consumer would consider pollen to be
a constituent of honey, let alone a ‘valuable constituent.’”