Tag Archives citric acid

A federal court in California has decertified a damages class in litigation alleging that Dole Packaged Foods, LLC misleads consumers by labeling 10 of its fruit products as “All Natural Fruit” because they contain allegedly synthetic ingredients ascorbic acid and citric acid. Brazil v. Dole Packaged Foods, LLC, No. 12-1831 (N.D. Cal., order entered November 6, 2014). The court found flaws in the regression model that the plaintiff’s expert (Oral Capps) used to determine the price premium attributable to the company’s use of the “All Natural Fruit” label statements, finding that the model “does not sufficiently isolate the price impact” of the labeling statement. The court disagreed with Dole that the expert performed a “price” regression rather than a “sales” regression and thus “measured the wrong thing.” According to the court, while the initially proposed analysis differed from the one actually carried out, given that the expert had initially proposed…