Snapple Rooibos Immunity Class Action

A class action lawsuit filed in Federal Court accuses the makers of Snapple of pushing its “Immunity” bottled tea with false and unsupported claims about its ingredients’ effects on the immune system.

According to the Snapple tea class action lawsuit, the Dr Pepper Snapple Group is one of the many “unscrupulous companies” that has attempted to corner health-conscious consumers by tossing a small amount of a particular substance — usually an exotic supplement touted as being able to promote good health — into a product and advertising the product as though it could provide results beyond any reasonable expectation. “Often such substances contribute no scientifically proven health benefits, or the products contain the substances in such small amounts that any real benefit is illusory,” the lawsuit states.

That’s the case with some of Snapple’s iced tea drinks, says the class action, which are labeled as being able to boost immunity and advertised as being “rich in antioxidant vitamin C which helps support a healthy immune system,” and made from “a rare antioxidant rich tea” called rooibos. These claims, the class action says, lead consumers to believe that ingesting rooibos, coupled with the other ingredients contained in the product, would result in tangible benefits to their immunity and health, when in fact “this is false, deceptive and misleading. Snapple has no competent and reliable scientific evidence to support such claims for the product… [and] cites no clinical trial or study it has conducted or commissioned on the purported benefits of the product.” Without these clinical trials or studies, the lawsuit continues, consumers have no way of knowing the real benefits or risks of ingesting rooibos, or if any of the other ingredients found in Snapple tea might offset or counteract the purported immunity benefits of rooibos and the other promoted ingredients.

The Snapple rooibos tea class action lawsuit is brought on behalf of a proposed class of California consumers who have purchased the product for personal use during the period extending from the date Dr Pepper Snapple Group first starting labeling the product as being able to boost immunity, through the date the class action complaint was filed. If certified as a class action, it will seek to award restitution to California consumers who purchased the product, attorneys’ fees and costs, and other relief.

A copy of the Snapple Rooibos Tea Immunity Class Action Lawsuit can be read here.