Judge Allows Honest Tea Class Action Lawsuit to Proceed

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Following an amended complaint filed by the plaintiffs, a judge has denied a company’s attempt to dismiss an Honest Tea class action lawsuit, deciding that the plaintiff had adequately pleaded her claims that she was misled regarding certain nutrient claims.

In the original Honest Tea class action lawsuit, lead plaintiff Sarah Salazar alleged that she relied on the representations of the company that the various antioxidant claims on the label for the green tea products were accurate. However, the updated complaint focuses on whether or not the company has the right to make claims regarding the amount of flavonoids and antioxidants the product contains.

Although the company had argued that the language was legal, Salazar claimed that there was no way to determine whether or not the tea was “packed” with a certain antioxidant or many of its other claims because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had never established daily intakes or assessed their potential value. She is seeking damages on violations of California’s Consumer Legal Remedies Act, Unfair Competition Law and False Advertising Law, among others.

The judge was less than convinced by Honest Tea’s assertion that it had the right to free speech because it wanted to tell people about the facts about its teas as well. U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller wrote, “Here, defendant does not provide any authority to support its novel position that ‘the First Amendment bars [plaintiff] from seeking to hold [defendant] liable for conveying truthful information.’”

Even if that was the case, the order denying the motion to dismiss the Honest Tea class action lawsuit noted that Salazar had pleaded her claims with enough particularity that she had demonstrated that she could be plausibly misled, rendering the Bill of Rights claim moot. In that argument, the judge noted a related decision where another jurist had written, “[t]o the extent the injury alleged is reliance on a misleading, as opposed to an unlawful, label, whether plaintiff was actually misled is a factual question that is an inappropriate basis for dismissal at this stage.”

Judge Mueller also found compelling FDA letters to other manufacturers regarding the labeling of products containing antioxidants that noted various restrictions regarding a “nutrient content claim.” As such, those manufacturers had to change their labeling to reduce the amount of puffery. Further, she noted that as a result, Salazar had properly argued that the Honest Tea products “may plausibly be in violation of the regulations.”

Salazar is represented by L. Timothy Fisher, Sarah N. Westcot and Annick M. Persinger of Bursor & Fisher PA.

The Honest Tea Class Action Lawsuit is Sarah A. Salazar v. Honest Tea Inc., Case No. 2:13-cv-02318 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.