Starbucks Class Action: Customers Short-Changed on Iced Drinks

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Starbucks has been systematically underfilling the cold drinks served in its stores, according to a new consumer class action lawsuit.

Plaintiff Stacy Pincus says that Starbucks cold drinks don’t provide nearly the amount of product advertised on the in-store menu. Pincus specifically takes issue with the drinks that are “handcrafted by Starbucks employees in Starbucks retail stores and served with ice.”

These drinks include iced coffee, shaken iced tea, shaken iced tea lemonade, Refreshers, and Fizzio sodas. (In a footnote, Pincus mentions the cold drinks class action lawsuit does not apply to bottled Starbucks drinks.)

Pincus says that despite being advertised as offering a certain volume of product, Starbucks cold drinks only contain a fraction of that volume. The rest is ice, added until it reaches the top of the cup, she claims.

For example, a Venti iced coffee advertised as 24 ounces actually contains only about 14 fluid ounces, according to Pincus’s measurements. To prepare the drink, a barista fills the cup with coffee up to a line marked on the cup, then adds ice using one of several graduated ice scoops that delivers the corresponding amount of ice for that specific size of cold drink.

Pincus says Starbucks uses the lines marked on the cup to ensure the customer gets only a fraction of the amount of product advertised on the menu – “just over half the advertised amount, and just over half the amount for which they are paying,” she claims.

She also notes that a given amount of ice takes up more space than the same amount of liquid water. So even if Starbucks cold drinks appear full with ice, allowing the ice to melt reveals the actual amount of fluid sold is still less than the amount advertised on the menu, she reasons.

In this way, Pincus argues, Starbucks is intentionally misleading its customers. That alleged deception allows the company to charge its customers “artificially inflated prices” that they would not have paid had they known how much product they were actually getting.

This Starbucks cold drinks class action lawsuit echoes a similar claim brought in California a few weeks earlier, alleging the company has been similarly underfilling its hot lattes.

If certified, the proposed plaintiff Class would encompass everyone in the U.S. who purchased Starbucks cold drinks between April 27, 2006 and the date the cold drinks class action was filed. Pincus is also proposing a subclass of such persons who purchased their Starbucks cold drinks in Illinois.

Pincus seeks an award of compensatory and punitive damages, plus court costs, attorneys’s fees, and pre-judgment interest.

The plaintiff is represented by Steven A. Hart, Robert J. McLaughlin, and Benjamin M. Shrader of Hart McLaughlin & Eldridge LLC.

The Starbucks Underfilled Iced Drinks Class Action Lawsuit is Pincus v. Starbucks Corp., Case No.1:16-cv-04705, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

UPDATE: On May 26, 2016, Starbucks filed a motion with the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to transfer all underfilled drinks class action lawsuits to Washington, arguing that it would be more convenient for depositions. 

UPDATE 2: On Aug. 5, 2016, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ruled that the class action lawsuits alleging Starbucks intentionally underfills lattes and other coffee drinks will not be merged into one centralized case.

UPDATE 3: On Aug. 25, 2016, just days after escaping a similar claim in California, Starbucks sought the dismissal of a consumer lawsuit in Illinois federal court that accuses the company of underfilling its iced drinks.