Safeway Grocery Delivery Class Action Lawsuit

Karina Basso | February 17, 2015

Category: Consumer News

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On Feb. 12, a federal judge ruled that the Safeway grocery delivery class action lawsuit only applies to Class Members who were registered on the grocery store’s website as of 2006.

This ruling amends U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar’s previous partial summary judgment in this grocery delivery class action lawsuit, which alleges Safeway made a practice of marking up grocery prices for produce purchased online and delivered to a consumer’s home.

Back in 2011, lead plaintiff Michael Rodman filed this Safeway class action lawsuit in California federal court, claiming that Safeway’s online terms and agreements state that consumers who purchase grocery products online will pay the same prices found at Safeway’s physical store locations. However, according to Rodman’s grocery delivery class action lawsuit, Safeway overcharged 10 percent, if not more, for the majority of home-delivery items ordered through Safeway.com.

In March 2014, the Safeway grocery delivery class action lawsuit was given partial certification by Judge Tigar, allowing the complaint to move forward on the grounds Safeway allegedly breached contract with online Safeway shoppers. However, at this point, the judge did toss other claims against the grocery chain, including alleged violations of California’s Consumer Legal Remedies Act, Unfair Competition Law, and False Advertising Law.

A few months later in December, Judge Tigar sided with the plaintiff and ruled that Safeway had in fact breached contract with its consumers. Soon after this ruling, Safeway shot back that it had not breached contract with all Class Members, since Rodman’s grocery delivery class action lawsuit only referred to an online contract posted by Safeway in 2006.

Safeway claims that while the plaintiff did later include a Safeway contract that pre-dates the 2006 Safeway online shopping contract, these documents “were not placed before the court by plaintiff’s initial motion for summary judgment and defendant thus did not have sufficient notice that plaintiff sought summary judgment that Safeway breached the contract with class members who registered prior to 2006,” according to Safeway’s motion to reconsider the partial summary judgment passed on the grocery delivery class action lawsuit.

Judge Tigar did partially grant Safeway’s claim, and has ruled that the proposed Safeway class action lawsuit will only apply to consumers who registered for home-delivered groceries through Safeway.com as of 2006. Additionally, the judge also granted the grocery chain’s claim for damages.

Originally, Judge Tigar had ruled that an appropriate measure of damages owed to Class Members was the “aggregate amount of the online mark-up.” However, in his amended partial summary judgment, the judge concluded: “Plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment did not make any argument as to why the aggregate amount was the appropriate measure of damages, beyond the conclusory statement that ‘Plaintiff and the Class are entitled to recovery the full aggregate amount of the charged markup by Safeway.'”

Despite this ruling, the plaintiffs of this Safeway grocery delivery class action lawsuit may still seek damages and summary judgment on the measure of damages in future litigation.

UPDATE: On Oct. 4, 2016, Safeway was ordered to pay $516,000 in discovery sanctions to a Class of grocery shoppers who claim they overpaid for online purchases.

UPDATE 2: December 2017, a $42 million judgment against Safeway is now being distributed to qualifying Class Members who were allegedly overcharged for online grocery delivery service. Learn more here.

UPDATE 3: On July 15, 2019, Top Class Actions viewers started receiving checks in the mail from the Safeway online delivery judgement worth as much as $2,289.83. Congratulations to everyone who got PAID!

Who’s Eligible

Class Members of the Safeway grocery delivery class action lawsuit include:

“All persons in the United States who registered to purchase groceries through Safeway.com at any time prior to November 15, 2011, and made one or more purchases subject to the price markup implemented on or about April 12, 2010.”

As of this month’s ruling, the proposed Class will only go as far back as 2006, meaning customers who registered to purchase groceries with Safeway online prior to 2006 and after Nov. 15, 2011 are not considered Class Members.

If you are not sure if you are a Class Member, you can visit www.SafewayGroceryDeliveryClassAction.com and review the provided court documents.