Court Dismisses Junior Mints Slack-Fill Suit

A New York federal court has dismissed a putative slack-fill class action against Tootsie Roll Industries, finding that the packaging of Junior Mints contains sufficient information for consumers to determine its volume and that “[t]he law simply does not provide the level of coddling plaintiffs seek. … The court declines to enshrine into the law an embarrassing level of mathematical illiteracy.” Daniel v. Tootsie Roll Industries LLC, No. 17-7541 (S.D.N.Y., entered August 1, 2018).

The court found that “consumers can easily calculate the number of candies contained in the Product boxes simply by multiplying the serving size by the number of servings in each box, information displayed in the nutritional facts section on the back of each box.” In addition, the court rejected arguments that consumers depend on the size of the candies as shown on the package.

Moreover, the court found that the plaintiffs did not show that the slack fill in the candy boxes was unnecessary with their comparison to similar candy packaging, noting that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recognized that the level of functional slack fill in packages of similar types of food can vary. “Plaintiffs have not demonstrated, with factual assertions, that the slack-fill in the Products is unnecessary to protect the Junior Mints, or does not reflect the requirements of the machines used for enclosing the packages, or is not the result of unavoidable product settling, or is not the consequence of an inability to increase the level of fill or to further reduce the size of the package,” the court held.