Previous Trans Fat Litigation Proves Plaintiff’s Knowledge, Court Finds

After dismissing a portion of the claims in July 2015, a California federal
court has dismissed the remaining claims in a lawsuit against Nissin
Foods Co. Inc. alleging that the use of partially hydrogenated oil (PHO)
violates California law. Guttmann v. Nissin Foods (U.S.A.) Co., Inc., No. 15-0567 (N.D. Cal., order entered August 14, 2015). The plaintiff alleged
that Nissin sold unsafe food to the public because of the trans fat content
of its Cup Noodles®. Details of the previous ruling appear in Issue 573 of
this Update.

The plaintiff’s claims of unfair business practices and breach of the
implied warranty of merchantability rested on his lack of knowledge
about the harms of PHO and trans fat when he purchased Cup Noodles®.
He claimed to believe that the products he purchased were safe to
consume when they allegedly were not; however, according to three
previous lawsuits against other companies on the same issues, the plaintiff
knew of the harms of trans fat as early as 2010, leaving the statute
of limitations on his claims to expire in 2014. “Guttmann could reasonably
have avoided any injury based on Nissin’s use of artificial trans-fat
by reading the nutrition-facts panel and deciding not to purchase or
consume them based on the presence of partially-hydrogenated oil,” the
court noted, dismissing the remaining claims accordingly.

Issue 576