Sugar Babies, Junior Mints Underfilled Boxes Class Action Claims Tossed—For Now

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Sugar Babies, Junior Mints Class Action Lawsuit Overview:

• Who: Tootsie Roll, maker of movie theater and Halloween favorites, Sugar Babies and Junior Mints, has scared away a class action lawsuit. 
• Why: A New Jersey judge dismissed claims that Tootsie Roll falsely advertised the amount of candy in its Junior Mints and Sugar Babies packets, but left consumers a chance to amend the class action.
• Where: The class action is pending in New Jersey federal court.

A class action lawsuit accusing Tootsie Roll of underfilling its Junior Mints and Sugar Babies packets has been tossed out by a New Jersey federal judge who ruled that plaintiff Regan Iglesia lacked standing to file the lawsuit—especially in regards to Sugar Babies, which he had never purchased.

Iglesia alleged in the 2020 class action that Tootsie Roll Industries included “an unlawful amount of empty space, or ‘slack-fill’” in boxes of Sugar Babies and Junior Mints in violation of a number of consumer protection laws. 

Tootsie Roll twice asked for the case to be dismissed due to a lack of standing, and succeeded this time round. 

Sugar Babies, Junior Mints Class Action May Return to Haunt Tootsie Roll

On Monday, US District Judge Anne E. Thompson ruling that Iglesia did in fact lack standing in the claim regarding Sugar Babies, and insufficiently pleaded the remainder of his case.

Iglesia had argued that when he purchased Junior Mints in New Jersey he “understood the size of the box and product label to indicate the amount of candy contained therein was commensurate with the size of the box.”

He argued that he would not have bought the candies had he known that they contained slack-fill “that serves no functional or lawful purpose,” only to save Tootsie Roll money.

However, the back panel of the Junior Mints has a disclosure that the “product sold by weight not volume,” which Thompson said “addresses the very information that Plaintiff alleges was misrepresented,” concluded the judge. 

“A consumer ‘can easily calculate the number of candies contained in the Product boxes simply by multiplying the serving size by the number of servings in each box, information displayed in the nutritional facts section on the back of each box,’” she wrote.

“Plaintiff’s allegations of ascertainable loss are insufficient to support his claim.”

Thompson also ruled that the remainder of his claims lacked standing, and she said that he could not amend his unjust enrichment claim, “because the Court concludes that any amendment would be futile.”

Thompson gave Iglesia 30 days to file an amended complaint and Top Class Actions will continue to monitor this lawsuit for future developments. 

Tootsie Roll was hit by a similar class action lawsuit in 2017, when New York’s Biola Daniel alleged the company’s deceptive packaging and non-functional slack-fill in its Junior Mints violated the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act and New York consumer protection laws.

Have you ever been left wanting by the slack-fill in a packet of Sugar Babies, Junior Mints, or other candy? Let us you’re your experience in the comments section!

The plaintiff  is represented by James C. Shah. 

The Sugar Babies, Junior Mints Slack-Fill Class Action Lawsuit is Regan Iglesia v. Tootsie Roll Industries LLC, Case No. 3:20-cv-18751, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

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