Rawlings Wants Weighted Baseball Bats Class Action Dismissed

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Rawlings Sporting Goods asked a federal court to dismiss a class action lawsuit that alleges the company’s youth baseball bats weigh more than advertised.

Rawlings argues that promotional statements made regarding the weight of their products were listed on a third-party website, therefore the misrepresentation didn’t come from them.

Rawlings says they should be dropped from the baseball bats class action lawsuit since they did not make the statements about the bats directly.

In addition, Rawlings claims that the original class action lawsuit doesn’t contain enough clear information about the promotional statements.

Rawlings says they should not be held liable since they never made the claims in question and that the plaintiff who filed the lawsuit cannot possibly represent all the consumers that the plaintiff wants to certify in the Class, which could number in the thousands.

The lead plaintiff in the Rawlings baseball bats class action lawsuit, Richard Sotelo, filed the legal claim after purchasing one baseball bat for his son. Rawlings argues that’s not enough to continue the class action lawsuit they claim is “massive overbroad.”

The Rawlings class action lawsuit states that the plaintiff purchased a baseball bat for his son to use based on the advertised weight, only to discover that the product was 2 or 3 ounces heavier.

According to the arguments made in the baseball bats class action lawsuit, this makes the baseball bat dangerous and essentially unusable.

The product in question is the 2018 Rawlings Youth 5150 USA-model baseball bat, a bat the plaintiff found to be 2.6 ounces heavier than what was advertised.

The defendant in the baseball bats class action lawsuit, however, argues that the purchase occurred on a third party website even though it was a Rawlings bat.

The lead plaintiff says the third-party site was an authorized dealer, a fact the defendant says is not enough to claim that Rawlings knew or should have known about the misleading statements over the bat’s weight.

Rawlings argues that the baseball bat class action lawsuit does not point out that Rawlings had any reason to be aware of the problem at the time of the plaintiff’s purchase in November 2017. Rawlings says the reviews on the third-party site mentioning the issue were added or edited after the lawsuit was filed.

“Plaintiff does not explain what ‘authorized dealers’ of Rawlings products are, discuss how Rawlings chooses or governs ‘authorized dealers,’ or give the court any reason to believe that Rawlings had any control over the methods this third-party website chose to market its products,” Rawlings states.

The plaintiff in the baseball bats class action lawsuit is represented by David R. Shoop of Shoop PC, Janine Pollack and Adam Gonnelli of The Sultzer Law Group PC and Lee S. Shalov and Jason S. Giaimo of McLaughlin & Stern LLP.

The Rawlings Baseball Bats Class Action Lawsuit is Richard Sotelo v. Rawlings Sporting Goods Company Inc., Case No. 2:18-cv-09166-GW-MAA, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Western Division.

UPDATE: On Jan. 17, 2020, a California federal judge was asked to certify a Class of California baseball bat buyers who say were financially injured by Rawlings Sporting Goods’ mislabeling of its baseball bats.