Shoppers Fight Dismissal of Dooney & Bourke Class Action Lawsuit

A plaintiff suing clothing retailer Dooney & Burke has responded to the company’s motion to dismiss her false advertising lawsuit, arguing that she has adequately stated a claim for violation of California consumer protection law.

Plaintiff Monica Rael alleges Dooney & Bourke use “false discount pricing” to sell its outlet store merchandise “at purported discounts from fabricated ‘original’ prices.”

She urged U.S. District Judge Jeffrey T. Miller not to dismiss her Dooney & Bourke class action lawsuit since the pricing scheme as she describes it allegedly violates California law.

Dooney & Bourke moved to dismiss Rael’s claim in June 2016. The company argued several of her allegations of wrongdoing did not apply to her own particular Dooney & Bourke purchase.

Rael counters that her attorneys did a thorough investigation prior to filing her Dooney & Bourke class action lawsuit, and that the allegations she raises are based on the results of that investigation. She also argues that backing up the allegations with more evidence would require the litigation to proceed through discovery.

Rael claims that merchandise offered at the fake “discount” price at Dooney & Bourke outlet stores was never actually offered for sale at the company’s purported “original” prices. She also alleges the marked “original” prices were not the prevailing market retail price for those or comparable items within the 90 days preceding the advertisement of the price, as California law requires them to be.

The plaintiff says that Dooney & Bourke advertises merchandise at its outlet stores as being constantly “on sale,” prolonging the advertised sale far beyond the 90-day limit set by California law.

Rael takes issue with the quality of the merchandise sold at Dooney & Bourke outlet stores. She says the outlet store inventory is of lower quality and therefore can’t be worth the full “original” prices it’s marked with.

She claims the company does not disclose that fact anywhere else but on the back of the customer’s receipt. That way, the customer does not become aware of the lower value of the goods until after the purchase has already been made, she argues.

What’s more, Rael says, the merchandise at Dooney & Bourke outlet stores is available only at those stores. She says these products are the company’s “own, exclusive, branded, outlet-specific merchandise.” That means there is no actual “market” for these specific items, so they can have no true “prevailing market retail price.”

The only possible reference for what the items’ “original” prices could be are whatever retail prices Dooney & Bourke set for the items – prices that could be completely arbitrary or fabricated, she alleges.

Rael claims that in December 2015 she bought a handbag from a Dooney & Bourke retail factory store in California. She says she paid $136.80 for the bag, supposedly a 40 percent discount from an “original” price of $228.

She now claims Dooney & Bourke never offered that handbag for the marked original price at its outlet stores. The plaintiff says the price she paid for the bag was its regular price and that the purported “original” price was used to create the false impression of a bargain.

Representing Rael are attorneys Todd D. Carpenter, Edwin J. Kilpela and Gary F. Lynch of Carlson Lynch Sweet Kilpela & Carpenter LLP.

The Dooney & Bourke False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit is Monica Rael v. Dooney & Bourke Inc., et al., Case No. 3:16-cv-00371, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

UPDATE: On July 22, 2016, the judge dismissed the Dooney & Bourke false advertising class action lawsuit, but has given the plaintiff 14 days to amend pleadings.