Ab Cuts Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Kendra Wilkinson

Ab Cuts Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Kendra Wilkinson

By Anne Bucher

A class action lawsuit has been filed against Kendra Wilkinson, the former star of “The Girls Next Door” and “Kendra,” in a New York federal court. The plaintiffs accuse Wilkinson of advertising an ineffective and potentially dangerous fat loss supplement.

Adam Karhu filed the class action lawsuit on June 25, claiming that Wilkinson’s promotion of the Abdominal Cuts (“Ab Cuts”) fat loss supplement as “a health supplement, not a diet pill,” was false and misleading.

As the principal endorser of Ab Cuts, Wilkinson appears in nearly every product advertisement. She also promotes Ab Cuts on her website, through Facebook and Twitter, on talk show appearances and in celebrity magazines. She makes paid appearances at GNC stores throughout the U.S. According to the class action lawsuit, Wilkinson claims that Ab Cuts is her “I-Cheat-Every-Day Diet.”

The class action lawsuit also names Ab Cuts marketer Corr-Jensen Inc. and nutritional supplement retailer GNC Corp as defendants. The Ab Cuts product line includes 11 products that are made with the same active ingredient, conjugated linoleic acid (“CLA”). The defendants claim that CLA promotes fat loss and weight loss.

Sometime in mid-2010, Karhu purchased a bottle of an Ab Cuts product from a GNC retail store in New York. In his class action lawsuit, Karhu claims that the sales representative told him that Ab Cuts was “great if you want to tone up your midsection without changing your diet.” Karhu relied on this representation and on the representation of the Ab Cuts label when he made the decision to purchase the product. He says that he would not have purchased the product if he had known these claims were false.

According to the class action lawsuit, the defendants claim that Ab Cuts will deliver a “3.1% reduction in body fat percentage,” “amplified metabolism,” and “overall physique enhancement.” The official Ab Cuts website promotes Ab Cuts as a healthy supplement that can “assist with body-fat reduction (particularly in the abdominal area), healthy metabolism, antioxidant supply and anti-inflammatory assistance.” Karhu claims that each of these representations is false and misleading.

Karhu points to studies that show that CLA is not only likely to be ineffective at weight loss, but that it is also dangerous to consumers’ health. These studies show that CLA is no more effective than a placebo, and increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and hypertension.

Putative members of the class action lawsuit include anyone in the U.S. who purchased Ab Cuts, excluding people who purchased the products for resale. Karhu believes there may be hundreds of thousands of eligible Class Members.

Karhu is asserting claims for breach of express warranty, breach of the implied warranty of merchantability, unjust enrichment, violation of the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act, and for violation of New York’s consumer protection laws.

The Ab Cuts False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit case is Karhu v. Corr-Jensen Labs Inc. et al., Case No. 13-cv-03583, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

The plaintiffs are represented by Scott A. Bursor, Joseph I. Marchese, Neal J. Deckant and Yitzchak Kopel of Bursor & Fisher PA.

Updated July 5th, 2013

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