Coffee-mate Creamer Class Action Survives Dismissal

Plaintiffs have overcome a bid to dismiss a Coffee-mate Creamer trans fat class action lawsuit alleging Nestle and others lied about the contents of their product.  

Nestle attempted to argue that the lead plaintiff was not specific as to when he purchased the creamer; however, an amended Coffee-mate class action complaint rectified that problem, according to U.S. District Court Judge Maxine M. Chesney.  

The food manufacturer also argued that the plaintiff only knew that trans fats were harmful starting in 2017, but attempted to claim Nestle had duped him and other consumers with Coffee-mate’s “0g Trans Fat” label since 2010.

However, Judge Chesney pointed out that the plaintiff likely meant that he learned that Coffee-mate creamer included trans-fat – he had allegedly known all along that trans-fat was a “unsafe food additive.”

In addition, the judge ruled that the plaintiff had sufficiently established that he relied on the food producer’s claims that the product contained “0g Trans Fat” when making his purchases.  

Nestle also argued that the plaintiff had missed the deadline to file the Coffee-mate Creamer trans fat class action lawsuit. Judge Chesney disagreed, ruling that the plaintiff had pled “delayed discovery,” stalling the deadline.  

“Beasley has alleged Nestlé engaged in the challenged ‘labeling practices’ for ‘many years’ that he ‘has no training’ as to ‘nutrient content claim regulations promulgated by the FDA’, and that he ‘reasonably relied on the assumption that Defendants would not manufacture and sell a product with prominent, false, unauthorized, and unlawful statements about its ingredients,’” noted the judge in her order.

“Read in the light most favorable to [the plaintiff], the Court understands such allegations to set forth a reasonable belief that Nestlé either would not have risked openly violating the law for such an extended period of time or would not have been allowed to do so without regulatory repercussions.” 

The Coffee-mate creamer trans fat class action was trimmed under an earlier ruling by the judge, however. The plaintiff submitted an amended complaint in response, narrowing his proposed Class and, as noted above, more clearly describing the dates he purchased the product.  

According to the Coffee-mate Creamer trans-fat class action lawsuit, Nestle and its subsidiary Lucky Stores Inc. misleadingly labeled the product as containing 0g trans fat. The plaintiff claimed that he and other consumers believed that meant that the product contained no partially hydrogenated oil – a substance that has been declared an “unsafe food additive.”  

The complaint pointed out that the food manufacturer should have known about the health risks of the product, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and accelerated memory damage and cognitive decline.  

In addition, competing products did not include the substance in their make-up. The plaintiff alleged that he was actively trying to avoid trans fat and relied on Coffee-mate’s labeling when making his purchases. He claimed that the fact that there were other similar products on the market that did not include the substance shows that Nestle and its subsidiaries were, in fact, trying to dupe consumers into believing their Coffee-mate did not include trans fat.  

The amended Coffee-mate creamer trans fat class action lawsuit seeks to represent those who purchased the product in California between January 2010 and December 2014. 

Did you know Coffee-mate included trans fats? If not, are you surprised? Tell us more in the comments below.  

The lead plaintiff and the proposed Class are represented by Gregory S. Weston and Andrew C. Hamilton of The Weston Firm. 

The Coffee-mate Creamer Trans Fat Class Action Lawsuit is Beasley v. Lucky Stores Inc., et al., Case No. 3:18-cv-07144-JSC, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. 

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