Welch Must Face Mislabeling Class Action Lawsuit’s ‘Scandalous’ Claim

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.

Welch Foods Inc.’s motion to strike in a mislabeling class action lawsuit was denied on Friday. U.S. District Judge Paul S. Grewal ruled that the class action lawsuit accusing Welch of mislabeling its food products as all natural was not “scandalous” under California law and the breach of warranty claims would stand as well.

In December 2012, lead plaintiffs Elizabeth Park and Carolyn Otto filed the class action lawsuit alleging they purchased Welch products based on the company’s mislabeling of the product. They allege the “no sugar added” claim on Welch’s “100% juice” line misled consumers into thinking the juices were healthier and claims that Welch’s line of “natural spreads” contained preservatives and other chemicals. After the plaintiffs filed two amended class action lawsuits, Welch filed a motion to strike “any allegations that the purchase of its products may have subjected Plaintiffs to criminal liability and to dismiss Plaintiffs’ claim for breach of the implied warranty of merchantability for failure to state a claim.”

Judge Grewal ruled against Welch, pointing out “the court may strike from a pleading ‘any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter. The purpose of Rule 12(f) is to ‘avoid the expenditure of time and money that must arise from litigating spurious issues by dispensing with those issues prior to trial.'” The judge continued, “No allegations in this complaint are sufficiently ‘redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous’ to justify striking them.”

“Welch may be right in bewailing the absurdity of a statute that imposes liability of ‘not more than one year in the county jail or a fine of not more than one thousand dollars’ for any violation of any provision in any part of the statute regulating misbranded food,” the judge wrote. “The fact remains, however, that in California, ‘[i]t is unlawful for any person to … hold or offer for sale any food that is misbranded,’ and the statute establishing that is subject to the punishments described above. That means that Plaintiffs could, in fact, be arrested and prosecuted for unlawful possession of misbranded goods.”

With regard to the motion to dismiss the breach of warranty claims from the class action lawsuit, the judge pointed out California’s Commercial Code requires that “in order to be merchantable, a product must ‘[c]onform to the promises or affirmations of fact made on the container or label.'” The judge found that the plaintiffs adequately argued that the goods they purchased were not as promised on the label. “Here, Plaintiffs allege that Welch is a merchant with respect to food stuffs, that Plaintiffs purchased food stuffs they had sold, and that the food stuffs do not conform with the promises and affirmations of fact made on the label,” the judge said. “If each of these allegations is proved up through discovery, Plaintiffs will have established a breach of the warranty of merchantability.”

The plaintiffs are represented by Ben F. Pierce Gore of Pratt & Associates and Richard R. Barrett.

The Welch Mislabeling Class Action Lawsuit is Park, et al. v. Welch Foods Inc., Case No. 5:12-cv-06449, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.