A kosher certification organization has filed a lawsuit alleging International Food Products Inc., which does business as Sabra Foods, misleads consumers as to whether its hummus products are kosher. Rabbinical Council of Mass. v. Int'l Food Products, Inc., No. 22-11460 (D. Mass., Boston Div., filed September 9, 2022). The Rabbinical Council of Massachusetts, or KVH Kosher, previously certified Sabra as kosher but revoked its license in 2016 for "non-payment of fees, for adding new ingredients to their products without informing KVH, and for failing to take corrective actions in a timely manner as required by KVH." In addition to trademark allegations, KVH asserts that Sabra's continued use of the mark harms consumers who eat kosher. "KVH’s Mark on Sabra’s products caused a reasonable consumer to believe the products sold by Sabra with KVH’s mark are kosher, kosher for Passover or pareve, or prepared in accordance with orthodox Jewish religious standards," the…
Tag Archives Massachusetts
A Massachusetts federal court has granted a motion to dismiss a request for injunctive relief but allowed to continue other claims alleging that Gorton’s Inc. misleads consumers by marketing its tilapia products as “sustainably sourced.” Spindel v. Gorton’s Inc., No. 22-10599 (D. Mass., entered August 24, 2022). The court noted that in a hearing, Gorton’s acknowledged “that some of its tilapia comes from fish farms in China but contended that it follows industry best practices in its sourcing from China.” “To the extent plaintiffs are casting a wider net in arguing that only tilapia raised in the wild are sustainable, they will come up empty,” the court found. “However, Plaintiffs do assert a plausible (albeit hotly disputed) claim that Gorton’s tilapia are sourced, in part, from unsustainable Chinese fish farms with ‘environmentally destructive and inhumane’ practices.” Accordingly, the court denied the motion to dismiss these claims.
The National Pork Producers Council and a group of organizations representing restaurants and hotels in New England have filed a lawsuit aiming to enjoin Massachusetts from enforcing a law set to take effect August 15, 2022, banning the sale of pork produced from animals "that the business owner or operator knows or should know is the meat of a covered animal that was confined in a cruel manner, or is the meat of the immediate offspring of a covered animal that was confined in a cruel manner." Mass. Restaurant Ass'n v. Healey, No. 22-11245 (D. Mass., filed August 3, 2022). The complaint urges the court to prevent enforcement until after the U.S. Supreme Court has reviewed a Commerce Clause challenge to a "materially identical California statute." The Massachusetts Pork Rule and California's Proposition 12 ban "the sale of pork born to a sow confined in a way that prevents her…
Two consumers have filed a putative class action alleging Gorton's Inc. has misled consumers about the environmental impact of the fish it sells. Spindel v. Gorton's Inc., No. 22-10599 (D. Mass., filed April 21, 2022). "Gorton's claims about sustainability lead consumers to believe that the Products are 'sustainably sourced.' Consumer research demonstrates that claims like Gorton's suggest to consumers that the tilapia is sustainably sourced in accordance with high environmental and animal welfare standards," the complaint argues. "In reality, the Products are made from tilapia who are industrially farmed using unsustainable practices that are environmentally destructive and inhumane." The plaintiffs argue that Gorton's sources its tilapia from farms in China using pond aquaculture, "a particularly risky form of fish farming because, among other problems, this method is typically done in regions where tilapia ponds are 'vulnerable to river flooding events,'" creating the risk of releasing the "highly invasive" tilapia into local…
A plaintiff has filed a putative class action alleging Demoulas Super Markets Inc. includes representations on its Market Basket coffee indicating that the tins hold 76 to 79 cups of coffee but only contain 37 to 39 cups when prepared according to the label's instructions. Cohen v. Demoulas Super Mkts. Inc., No. 21-10177 (D. Mass., filed February 2, 2021). "This means that consumers of the Products, including Plaintiff, were cheated out of 51% of the servings they paid for, in both cases, based on the advertising, marketing, and labeling of the Products," the complaint asserts. The plaintiff alleges claims of unjust enrichment as well as breach of express warranty and untrue and misleading advertising under Massachusetts General Laws.
A Massachusetts federal court has dismissed allegations against Polar Corp. asserting the company's ginger ale products contain a "miniscule amount" of ginger that "provides none of the health benefits consumers associate with real ginger." Fitzgerald v. Polar Corp., No. 20-10877 (D. Mass., entered November 10, 2020). The court noted that the complaint "appears to have been imperfectly copied from a nearly identical case brought in the Northern District of California involving Canada Dry ginger ale." The court was unpersuaded that Polar Corp. misrepresented that the ginger ale contained ginger, finding that ginger was indeed an ingredient. "[N]o reasonable consumer could rely on a claim of 'real ginger' in a soft drink as a representation that the drink contains chunks of 'ginger root' as opposed to a ginger taste," the court found, dismissing the plaintiff's allegations that rested on the existence of false statements.
Several dispensaries of recreational marijuana in Massachusetts have filed a lawsuit alleging that Governor Charlie Baker exceeded his authority by classifying recreational-use marijuana retail establishments as non-essential while declaring medical-marijuana dispensaries and liquor stores as essential during a statewide shutdown to combat the spread of COVID-19. CommCan Inc. v. Baker, No. 2084CV00808 (Mass. Super. Ct., filed April 8, 2020). The complaint asserts that Massachusetts “seems to be the only state that has deemed medical marijuana essential but adult-use/recreational marijuana non-essential” and argues that California, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada and Washington classified both types of establishment as essential. The plaintiffs also include a Nantucket recreational-use dispensary and a war veteran who obtains marijuana from the dispensary for medical purposes because the nearest medical dispensary is more than an hour away. The court has reportedly denied an initial request for a preliminary injunction on the executive order.
A consumer has filed a putative class action alleging that the labels of Global Widget's products containing cannabidiol (CBD), including gummies, lollipops and syrup, do not identify an accurate amount of CBD in the products. Ahumada v. Global Widget LLC, No. 12005 (D. Mass., filed September 24, 2019). "Defendant makes numerous false and misleading claims on the front label of its CBD Products as well as on the retail website selling its CBD Products to illustrate and convey to consumers, the level of potency associated with benefits that consumers can expect to receive through their consumption. Specifically, Defendant misrepresents that the CBD Products have specific amounts of CBD when, in fact, the Products do not contain the amount of CBD as advertised and are instead grossly under-dosed," the plaintiff argues. "Defendant’s multiple and prominent systematic misrepresentations regarding the amount of CBD in the Products form a pattern of unlawful and…
A Massachusetts federal court has dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Post Consumer Brands misleads consumers by implying that Honey Bunches of Oats is primarily sweetened with honey rather than sugar, brown sugar and corn syrup. Lima v. Post Consumer Brands LLC, No. 18-12100 (D. Mass., entered August 13, 2019). Post argued that "honey" describes "one of the cereal's primary recognizable flavors" in addition to being a sweetener. "Plaintiffs seemingly understand that honey is both a sweetener and a flavoring agent," the court found, "yet they do not explain why they concluded that the word honey and the associated imagery necessarily meant that honey was the primary sweetener, rather than referring to the flavor of the cereal." Further, the court found that the packaging "makes no objective representation about the amount of honey, leaving the cereal's accurate list of ingredients as the only unambiguous representation of the amount of honey relative…
Seeking to obtain information on the ingredients in LaCroix, Consumer Reports apparently discovered that National Beverage Corp. had failed to obtain a permit sell its products in Massachusetts, which requires the submittal of water-quality tests. Consumer Reports notes, "The situation reveals an unusual quirk of food safety regulations: Federal and state regulations typically treat artificially carbonated waters—including club soda, tonic water, seltzer, and sparkling water—differently than bottled water. (Sparkling mineral water, which is naturally carbonated and contains natural minerals, is regulated like bottled water.) And even in states that have added oversight of those fizzy waters, there's apparently occasional slip-ups in enforcement." The article, originally published June 18, 2019, was updated on June 26 to reflect that National Beverage Corp. announced it had obtained the permit required to sell LaCroix within Massachusetts.
