Judge Allows Dole Fruit Mislabeling Class Action to Proceed

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Brazil says he purchased eight Dole products that were allegedly mislabeled, including Dole Frozen Blueberries, Dole Mixed Fruit in 100% Fruit Juice, Dole Fruit Smoothie Shakers, Dole Mixed Fruit in Cherry Gel, Dole Tropical Fruit in Light Syrup & Passion Fruit Juice, and two types of Dole Frozen Wildly Nutrition Signature Blends.

Even though some of his claims in the class action lawsuit involve products that Brazil never purchased but many putative Class Members have, U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh rejected Dole’s motion to dismiss those claims.

“Brazil is not asserting standing to sue over injuries he did not suffer; rather, Brazil asserts that the injuries he suffered as a result of buying the purchased products and the injuries suffered by the unnamed class members who purchased the substantially similar products are one and the same,” Judge Koh said in her September 23 decision. “By limiting a plaintiff’s ability to sue over products he did not purchase to situations involving claims and products that are substantially similar to those products he did purchase, courts ensure that the plaintiff is seeking to represent only those individuals who have suffered essentially the same injury as the plaintiff. The substantially similar approach therefore recognizes the need to limit a plaintiff’s standing to an injury he has personally suffered.”

She based her decision on a Ninth Circuit opinion that determined it is important not to rely on “too narrow or technical an approach” when evaluating whether a plaintiff has standing to sue on behalf of others who have suffered similar injuries.

Judge Koh did grant Dole’s request to dismiss claims Brazil based on website statements he never actually viewed. Brazil argued that he didn’t need to view the statements on Dole’s website to have standing to sue because the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) includes statements made on websites whose addresses are listed on the product label as part of the label.

“While defendants’ website statements may violate federal law by virtue of the FDA’s position that website statements may be incorporated into a product’s labeling by reference, it is far from apparent how this regulatory violation could have caused Brazil to purchase products when he neither saw the allegedly offending statements nor relied on them in deciding to purchase defendants’ products,” Judge Koh said.

Dole challenged Brazil’s argument that the company’s selling of allegedly misbranded products without disclosing the fact to consumers “is a deceptive act in and of itself.” Dole argued, and Judge Koh agreed, that the claim would impose an affirmative duty on food manufacturers to disclose labeling violations on their packaging, a requirement that does not appear in FDA regulations or the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

Brazil is represented by Ben F. Pierce Gore of Pratt & Associates and Charles Barrett of Charles Barrett PC.

The Dole Fruit False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit is Chad Brazil v. Dole Food Co. Inc., et al., Case No. 5:12-cv-01831, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On Dec. 8, 2014, a federal judge granted Dole’s motion for summary judgment and dismissed the company as a defendant from the class action lawsuit.

UPDATE 2: On Sept. 12, 2016, Consumers who purchased Dole fruit products that were allegedly misleadingly labeled “all natural” asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to revive their class action lawsuit, which had been previously dismissed in 2014.

UPDATE 3: On Sept. 30, 2016, plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit alleging Dole misleads consumers by labeling its frozen berry products as “all natural” when they contain synthetic ingredients won in the Ninth Circuit. However, the buyers have more work to do.