Vitamin Shoppe Escapes Bodybuilding Supplement Class Action Lawsuit

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A federal judge dismissed a class action lawsuit last week that accused Vitamin Shoppe Inc. of making false claims about a dietary supplement called True Athlete Training Formula, saying that the plaintiff’s claims “lack a factual basis.”

In Jan. 15, U.S. District Judge Stanley R. Chesler ruled that the plaintiff relied too heavily on “speculative assertions” and not actual facts for the proposed class action lawsuit to qualify as a Consumer Fraud Act claim. Judge Chesler will allow the plaintiff to amend his claims and try again.

The Vitamin Shoppe class action lawsuit was filed by California resident Steven Hodges after he purchased the bodybuilding supplement in December 2012. He claimed that he bought True Athlete Training Formula because he trusted what he alleges are false claims that it’s ingredients creatine, arginine and other ingredients would help with bodybuilding, enhance fitness, training, or help with endurance during workouts. However, Hodges argues that there isn’t actually enough of the most effective ingredients in the formula for the product to work, making it ineffective.

The judge explained in his ruling that the product label says that True Athlete Training Formula states the following: “Serious muscle, endurance and performance support. That’s what you get with True Athlete Training Formula. No filler. No fluff. No hype. Just the primary active ingredients needed to give you the advanced pre-workout support you want.”

However, Hodges claims that Vitamin Shoppe promises that True Athlete will “build muscle mass, increase strength [and] build endurance.”

“The words used in the label do not match the words identified by plaintiff as misrepresentation,” Chesler explains.

“The assertion that the product is ineffective appears, however, to be based on plaintiff’s own conclusion as to the inability of the product’s four active ingredients — creatine monohydrate, L-Arginine Alpha Ketoglutarate (AAKG), beta alanine and AstraGin — to deliver the promised benefits.”

In his class action, Hodges claims that AAKG is “known to be useless” when it comes to physiological functions.

Hodges does say in his complaint that the other ingredients may be beneficial “in proper doses,” but then goes on to say that Vitamin Shoppe “knowingly under-doses” those ingredients.

“The basis of plaintiff’s claim of falsity appears to rest on the absence of scientific support for delivery of benefits at the dosages indicated by the product,” Chesler wrote in his dismissal order. “For example, the complaint states that creatine monohydrate ‘has been clinically proven only at certain doses to increase strength and muscle mass,’ and then avers, without support, that at the dosing indicated by the product, the creatine monohydrate could not achieve those benefits.”

Hodges makes a similar argument about creatine monohydrate, which the judge argues does not necessarily mean that the supplements render no benefits at the current dose in the True Athlete Training Formula.

“The implication that affirmative proof as to the effectiveness of an ingredient at one dosage renders it ineffective at some other, lower dose, as contained in the product’s formulation does not state a prima facie [“at first look”] Consumer Fraud Act claim,” Chesler explains.

Hodges will be allowed to file an amended complaint to retry his claims.

The plaintiff is represented by Scott Alan George and Jonathan Shub of Seeger Weiss LLO and Nick Suciu III and Alyson Oliver of Oliver Law Group PC.

The Vitamin Shoppe True Athlete Training Formula Class Action Lawsuit is Steven Hodges v. Vitamin Shoppe Inc., Case No. 2:13-cv-03381, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.