Sales Data Deemed Inadmissible Hearsay in Gerber Litigation
A California federal court has remanded a putative class action against
Gerber Products Co. on the labeling of its Gerber® Graduates® Puffs to
state court and declined to admit sales data into evidence on hearsay
grounds. Gyorke-Takatri v. Nestle USA, Inc., No. 15-3702 (N.D. Cal.,
order entered November 6, 2015). The plaintiffs allege Gerber misleads
consumers with its Graduates® Puffs marketing by implying the products
are healthy with “vibrant images of fruits and vegetables on the outside of
the Puffs’ packaging.”
Gerber argued that the amount in controversy was more than $5 million
and thus sufficient to justify federal court jurisdiction. The plaintiffs
argued that the court should not consider the total retail sales of Puffs,
which Gerber says is well over the $5 million threshold, because the data
Gerber used to reach those numbers was gathered from Nielsen, a third
party. The court agreed, finding that the third-party data was inadmissible
as hearsay, and thus Gerber’s argument for jurisdiction failed.
Accordingly, the court remanded the case to state court.
Issue 584
