Cogent Dodges Baxyl Joint Supplement Class Action Lawsuit

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

A New Jersey federal judge has tossed a class action lawsuit over the effectiveness of joint health supplement Baxyl Hyaluronan, ruling that the plaintiff who represented himself had failed to adequately plead that he had suffered a loss and had been affected by the misrepresentations of supplement manufacturer Cogent Solutions Group, LLC.

The crux of the Baxyl class action lawsuit revolved around the reported efficacy of hyaluronic acid, a substance thought by some to help “rejuvenate” joint health and the main ingredient in Cogent Solutions’ Baxyl Hyaluronan supplement. The man alleged that Cogent failed to address how the Baxyl joint supplement would improve one’s health and further, whether or not the mechanism of its production was sufficient to meet expectations.

In a Dec. 16 ruling, Judge Susan D. Wigenton noted that Hoffman had only alleged that he bought the product, but did not allege that he took the joint health supplement. Further, while the New Jersey man cited the state’s Consumer Fraud Act, in granting the motion to dismiss, Wigenton cited the need for a higher level of factual support to meet fraud standards.

Instead, she decided that Hoffman had failed to include what representations he relied on in order to purchase the Baxyl joint supplement. Were he to allege defective design or manufacturing, the decision notes that he “does not demonstrate … how or why the product was defective.” Since there is no record in the complaint of him ingesting it, he “fails to identify any injuries or damages that were caused by the product.

To have satisfied the standard that Wigenton wanted, Hoffman would have needed to establish what representations and advertisements he used to purchase the product, how the product failed to conform to those and what injury he suffered. The original class action lawsuit does not include non-puffery language to satisfy the former, according to the decision to grant the motion to dismiss. Judge Wigenton also was not swayed by Hoffman’s assertion that how hyaluronic acid is manufactured can impact its efficacy in improving joint health without further scientific documentation.

Finally, since Hoffman was not able to plead that he had ingested the product at any time, there was no injury in fact, the judge wrote. Put in plain English, the joint health supplement occupies a place where it can either be ineffective or effective, but until the New Jersey man ingested one, it was impossible to know which for the purposes of maintaining the class action lawsuit.

Hoffman, a lawyer, represented himself.

The Baxyl Hyaluronan Supplement Class Action Lawsuit is Harold Hoffman v. Cogent Solutions Group LLC, Case No. 13-cv-00079, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey.