Whole Foods All Natural Class Action Kept Alive in Federal Court

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 federal judge ruled in a California court case that some of the claims in a Whole Foods proposed class action lawsuit over “all natural” labeling would remain, but nixed claims regarding the Consumer Legal Remedies Act and breach of contract.

Lead plaintiffs Mary and Grace Garrison originally filed their lawsuit in November 2013 claiming that they purchased some baked goods that were advertised as “all natural” but deceptively contained synthetic ingredients such as sodium acid pyrophosphate and maltodextrain. The couple did not have receipts for the goods and could not recall specific dates of purchase, though they claimed to have purchased the foods on several occasions.

U.S District Judge Vincent Chhabria, however, did agree that the information the pair provided contained enough data for the creation of a factual issue for the jurors to sort out.

“Based on a review of the plaintiffs’ deposition testimony, it does seem unlikely that a jury would find the Garrisons credible on this issue,” Judge Chhabria noted. “But if the jury somehow believes the Garrisons’ testimony, this would form a basis for a finding that they were deceived.”

Judge Chhabria’s ruling on the summary judgment motion by Whole Foods allowed several claims to be kept alive, including violations of California’s False Advertising Law and Unfair Competition Law as well as claims for negligent misrepresentation, breach of express warranty and fraud. The judge stated that the plaintiffs’ California Consumer Legal Remedies Act claim did not survive because “they sent the required pre-suit notice to the wrong entity, and never bothered to cure this defect.”

The judge also ruled that the plaintiffs did not have a valid breach of contract claim because they were “not in privity” having an established contract with Whole Foods.

Whole Foods filed a motion for summary judgement in December, after a previous attempt in June 2014 to dismiss the lawsuit was not granted.

The grocery store argued that the plaintiffs were not deceived by the labeling and could not demonstrate they suffered actual injury. The retailer also said that the plaintiffs confused the term “natural” with “organic,” saying that sodium pyrophosphate is organic.

Whole Foods argued in their motion for summary judgment, “[Even] if plaintiffs’ confused and internally inconsistent understanding of the meaning of the term ‘natural’ were accepted, plaintiffs admit that the challenged ingredient satisfies their understanding of the term.” A hearing for the summary judgment motion was held last month.

Judge Chhabria stated in his response,“And although the Garrisons apparently had a mistaken belief that organic foods (like ‘all natural’ foods) contain no synthetic ingredients, that does not automatically render unreasonable their belief that products labeled ‘all natural’ would not contain any synthetic ingredients, nor does it eliminate the fact dispute that exists about whether they were deceived by the labels at issue.”

The plaintiffs are represented by Scott E. Cole, Matthew R. Bainer, Molly A. DeSario, Courtland W. Creekmore and Jessica Lynn Campbell of Scott Cole & Associates APC.

The Whole Foods “All Natural” Baked Goods Class Action Lawsuit is Garrison, et al. v. Whole Foods Market Group Inc., Case No. 3:13-cv-05222 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On June 7, 2016, Whole Foods agreed to settle two class action lawsuits alleging the high-end organic grocery chain falsely labeled certain baked good products as “all natural.”