Panel Rejects Minute Maid Pomegranate, Blueberry Juice MDL

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Two false advertising class action lawsuits over the ingredients in Minute Maid Enhanced Pomegranate Blueberry Juice will not be consolidated into a single legal proceeding, as The Coca Cola Co. had requested.

Coca Cola had asked the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to consolidate a Minute Maid class action lawsuit filed in a California federal court and a Florida federal court into an MDL in a California federal court. The plaintiffs in both class action lawsuits opposed having the lawsuits consolidated.

While the MDL panel said the Minute Maid class action lawsuits do share some similarities and have some common factual issues, it concluded it is not convinced “that these common issues are sufficiently complex or numerous to warrant the creation of an MDL.

“There is no dispute over the ingredients of the juice, only whether its labeling and marketing are deceptive with respect to those ingredients,” the panel said about the Minute Maid false advertising class action lawsuits.

“Centralization is unnecessary for such a straightforward marketing and sales practices docket,” the panel concluded.

Plaintiff Niloofar Saeidian filed the false advertising class action lawsuit over Minuted Maid Enhanced Pomegranate Blueberry Juice in the California federal court, alleging that Coca Cola had misrepresented the juice by saying that “the primary ingredients in the juice product are pomegranate and blueberry juice,” when the juice allegedly “contains very little pomegranate or blueberry juice . . . the primary ingredients are actually composed of cheap apple and grape juices,” the Minuted Maid false advertising class action lawsuit said.

These alleged false claims violate California’s Business and Professions Code, Saeidian said in the class action lawsuit.

According to the Minute Maid pomegranate blueberry juice class action lawsuit, both pomegranate and blueberry juices have health benefits. Pomegranate juice is supposed to aid in reducing the development of heart disease. Blueberry juice contain antioxidants and also helps in protecting the cardiovascular system.

When Coca Cola featured pomegranate and blueberry juices prominently on the label, Minute Maid customers bought the juice “under the false impression that by drinking defendant’s product they would be enjoying the healthful and nutritional benefits” of drinking those juices, the Minute Maid false advertising class action lawsuit states.

The class action lawsuit charges Coca-Cola with making a calculated decision when choosing the artwork to put on the label, which only includes pomegranates and blueberries.

The judicial panel said that this Minute Maid class action lawsuit “has been pending for more than five years, and much (if not all) of the discovery in that action has been completed.”

In addition, the MDL panel also said that each of the class action lawsuits are “limited to consumers residing in either California or Florida,” therefore “these actions do not involve overlapping putative classes.”

The Saeidian plaintiffs are represented by Weiss & Lurie.

Coca-Cola is represented by Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP.

The Minute Maid False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit is In Re: Minute Maid Pomegranate Blueberry Flavored Juice Blend Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation, Case No. 2593, before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.

UPDATE: On Feb. 29, 2016, the plaintiff asked a California federal judge to preliminarily approve a proposed settlement that accused The Coca-Cola Company of falsely advertising the contents of its Minute Maid pomegranate blueberry juice.