Safeway Grocery Delivery Class Action Lawsuit Partially Certified

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A man who believes he paid an unpublished surcharge while shopping for food online has won a partial victory as a federal judge in California certified a Safeway delivery fee class action lawsuit on the question of breach of contract.

Lead plaintiff Michael Rodman alleges in the Safeway delivery class action lawsuit that he signed up for the online shopping program at Safeway.com in February 2011 and believed that the prices on items he selected would “be coming from a specific brick-and-mortar close to him and that he would receive the same prices as if he were shopping at that store.” Instead, after making two separate purchases using the grocery delivery system, he found that there was an increase in the price, allegedly in violation of the contract as he read it on Safeway.com.

U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar declined to allow the Safeway delivery class action lawsuit to continue on alleged violations of California’s Consumer Legal Remedies Act, Unfair Competition Law and False Advertising Law, however. While Michael Rodman and his class action attorneys were able to make a compelling argument about whether a contract between Safeway and shoppers were breached, the three state statutes require consumers to rely on specific representations.

The grocery store chain was able to sufficiently document that while the man had read all of the terms and conditions, only a small fraction of other users of the online shopping program had done the same.

However, Judge Tigar hit back against some of the claims Safeway made in its motion to oppose class certification. He found that the company could not fight by saying that the class contained people who would not be able to obtain damages, such as those that had no problem with an increased price of roughly 10 percent based on the form contract, since that fee applied to everyone that signed up for the online shopping program.

According to the judge, both California contract law, which “generally expresses a preference for interpreting form contracts against the drafter,” and the fact that Safeway’s contract specifically noted that the terms and conditions within it would govern without need for any other documents make it easy to ascertain the class and the company could identify shoppers who paid additional fees for the grocery delivery program once the judge ascertains the legal ramifications of the contract.

Rodman is represented by class action attorneys Steven A. Schwartz and Timothy N. Mathews of Chimicles & Tikellis LLP and James C. Shah and Scott R. Shepherd of Shepherd Finkelman Miller & Shah LLP.

The Safeway Grocery Delivery Class Action Lawsuit is Michael Rodman, et al. v. Safeway Inc., Case No. 11-cv-03003, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On Feb. 12, a California federal judge ruled that Class Members of the Safeway grocery delivery class action lawsuit include consumers who were registered on the store’s website as of 2006. A website has been established with more information about the class action lawsuit. Click here or visit www.SafewayGroceryDeliveryClassAction.com for details.

UPDATE 2: On Oct. 4, 2016, Safeway was ordered to pay $516,000 in discovery sanctions to a Class of grocery shoppers who claim they overpaid for online purchases.

UPDATE 3: December 2017, a $42 million judgment against Safeway is now being distributed to qualifying Class Members who were allegedly overcharged for online grocery delivery service. Learn more here.

UPDATE 4: On July 15, 2019, Top Class Actions viewers started receiving checks in the mail from the Safeway online delivery judgement worth as much as $2,289.83. Congratulations to everyone who got PAID!