Family Dollar Aloe Vera False Advertising Class Action Tossed, For Now

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Family Dollar has dodged a class action lawsuit claiming that its store brand aloe vera gel is falsely advertised, and that it didn’t contain the plant’s active ingredient.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso determined that plaintiff Jennifer Parrott had not sufficiently proven that Family Dollar knew that the product was defective when it sold the product to consumers.

Judge Alonso determined that Parrot had not notified Family Dollar of the defect in the product before filing her lawsuit, and therefore, her claims are not in accordance with Illinois law.

According to Judge Alonso, “Ms. Parrott does not allege that Family Dollar manufactures, stores, or knows the formulation of the product. She likewise does not allege that Family Dollar had actual knowledge of the alleged defect.”

Thus, Judge Alonso states that Parrott’s claims of wrongdoing on the part of Family Dollar were insufficiently developed – her claims as to the involvement of Family Dollar in the process of creating the product were too inaccurate and unspecific in their current form.

Parrot’s Family Dollar aloe vera class action lawsuit hinges on her claim that the aloe vera gel did not contain acemannan, the plant’s active ingredient. She alleges that Family Dollar knew that the product did not contain the active ingredient, and that consumers would not buy the product if they knew it didn’t contain acemannan, and that they actively concealed this information from consumers.

Judge Alonso counters this allegation by saying that “Ms. Parrott does not allege other facts that would support a plausible claim for actual knowledge, such as the existence of other customer complaints or results from internal testing of the products it distributes, sells, or advertises.”

Therefore, he states that the evidence she presented to support her claims that the company intentionally concealed information about the product’s defect is insufficiently supported.

The judge goes on to note that if aloe vera gel is manufactured or stored improperly, the levels of acemannan can decrease. He states that Parrott did concede this during litigation, showing that she acknowledges that the decrease in acemannan levels could have occurred because of factors outside of the company’s knowledge or control, especially since Parrott did not claim that the company was actually in charge of the manufacture or shipping of the product.

Judge Alonso gave Parrott until June 5 to amend her complaint, addressing the holes that he pointed out in this week’s decision.

The Family Dollar customer is represented by Jason Thompson of Sommers Schwartz PC, Katrina Carroll and Kyle Shamberg of Lite DePalma Greenberg LLC, Nick Suciu III of Barbat Mansour & Suciu PLLC, Jonathan Shub of Kohn Swift & Graf PC, Jason Brown and Patrick Almonrode of JTB Law Group LLC, Gregory Coleman of Greg Coleman Law PC, Rachel Soffin and Jonathan Cohen of Morgan & Morgan Complex Litigation Group, Donald Enright of Levi & Korsinksy LLP, Samuel Strauss of Turke & Strauss LLP, and by Brian Wanca, Jeffrey Berman, Ross Good and Patrick Solberg of Anderson & Wanca.

The Family Dollar Aloe Vera Class Action Lawsuit is Jennifer Parrott v. Family Dollar Inc., et al., Case No. 1:17-cv-00222, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.