Odwalla Shouldn’t Escape ‘Cane Juice’ Class Action, Plaintiff Says

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The plaintiff in an Odwalla class action lawsuit has responded to the company’s motion for dismissal, reiterating her argument that the company shouldn’t use the term “evaporated cane juice” to describe what should be properly called “sugar.”

Plaintiff Robin Reese initially filed this Odwalla class action lawsuit back in 2013.

She claims the company’s use of the term “evaporated cane juice” on its labels is false and misleading under applicable federal and state laws.

Odwalla moved for dismissal in August 2016. The company argued that at the time the Odwalla class action lawsuit was filed, there was no federal prohibition on use of the term “evaporated cane juice.”

The company also claimed that it had removed the term “evaporated cane juice” from the ingredient lists of all its products, rendering moot the plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief.

Reese counters that the FDA’s recent guidance on use of the term “evaporated cane juice,” proposed in 2009 and issued in its final form in 2016, is just an application of federal statutes and regulations that have been in effect for years.

Under those laws, “the ingredient that Defendants denominate as ‘evaporated cane juice’ must be called sugar,” she alleges.

Her claims under California’s Sherman Law also are not preempted by federal law – and they can’t be, she argues.

Reese says the Sherman Law requirements directly parallel the federal requirements in a way that keeps them from being preempted.

She also contends that no federal law expressly preempts state law claims that the use of the term “evaporated cane juice” is false or misleading.

Reese argues that just because Odwalla has changed their labels doesn’t mean that injunctive relief isn’t in order.

An injunction may still be warranted because Odwalla has given no assurance that it will refrain from using the term in the future, she argues.

In her original Odwalla class action lawsuit, Reese says the ingredient that Odwalla identifies as “evaporated cane juice” falls within the FDA’s definition of “sucrose” – and any ingredient that matches that definition must be identified on the product’s label as “sugar.”

She argues that consumers seeking to avoid the health consequences of consuming sugar could reasonably be misled by the term “evaporated cane juice” into thinking it refers to something other than sugar.

This Odwalla class action lawsuit spent nearly two years in limbo, waiting on administrative guidance by the FDA.

In March 2014, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers put the Odwalla class action lawsuit on hold while the FDA prepared formal guidance on the use of the term “evaporated cane juice.”

The stay remained in place until the FDA issued its guidance in May 2016.

In that guidance, the FDA concluded that “the term ‘evaporated cane juice’ is false or misleading because it suggests that the sweetener is ‘juice’ or is made from ‘juice’ and does not reveal that its basic nature and characterizing properties are those of a sugar.”

Reese is represented by attorneys Keith M. Fleischman and Joshua D. Glatter of Fleischman Law Firm PLLC and Ben F. Pierce Gore of Pratt & Associates.

The Odwalla “Evaporated Cane Juice” Class Action Lawsuit is Reese v. Odwalla Inc., et al., Case No. 4:13-cv-00947, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On Feb. 13, 2017, this Odwalla class action lawsuit will continue, following a federal judge’s denial of the company’s motion to dismiss.