False Advertising

Defendant's "Nature Fusion" products featured those words on the front label along with a picture of an avocado on a leaf.  This decision holds that the label was not false advertising because it was ambiguous and the back label clarified the product's actual contents so that no reasonable consumer who examined both front and back would think that the product… Read More

The trial court instructed the jury to award plaintiff defendant's profits from the false advertising the jury found only if it found that the defendant acted wilfully.  This instruction was contrary to the Supreme Court's later holding in Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil Group, Inc. (2020) 140 S.Ct. 1492.  So the jury verdict was reversed and remanded.  However, disgorgement of… Read More

Trader Joe's label on honey saying "100% New Zealand Manuka Honey" was not false advertising in violation of the UCL.  Under FDA honey guidelines, a honey label may indicate the flower of origin of the honey if the producer has reason to believe that the designated flower is the chief floral source of the honey.  Here, Trader Joe's had evidence… Read More

The trial court erred in denying class certification in this action arising from allegedly terrible conditions at an apartment complex which the defendant owner had advertised as a luxury apartment building with many fancy amenities, but which was instead plagued with trashed common areas and other defects.  Reliance is not an element of the claim for false advertising under B&P… Read More

A guide to nutritional supplements that professed to be neutral but was allegedly favorable to a competing manufacturer that paid it handsomely for high rankings was commercial speech, largely because the manufacturer's payments gave the guide an economic motivation (apart from merely selling guides) to make the speech.  The guide also made false statements insofar as it denied plaintiff's products… Read More

Plaintiff's evidence, if believed by a fact-finder, would have supported the contention that defendant's ginkgo-infused pills had no mind-sharpening properties, contrary to defendant's advertising claims; so defendant was not entitled to summary judgment. Read More

Plaintiff’s unfair competition claim was pre-empted by FDA regulations governing how the defendant should calculate the protein content of its product, but plaintiff’s similar false advertising claim was not preempted because it accused the defendant of misrepresenting the source of the protein in the product. Read More

Plaintiff stated viable causes of action under the unfair competition and false advertising laws, and for breach of warranty, by stating that Bayer's One-A-Day vitamins are mislabeled—two a day is required to meet recommended daily allowances for most vitamins. Read More

The payment of money for a product that the plaintiff would not have purchased but for the false advertising—here, presenting products with a fake list price crossed out and an invented “discount” alongside—is sufficient economic injury to confer standing to sue under the unfair competition law, false advertising law, and the Consumer Legal Remedies Act. Read More

A retailer did not falsely advertise clothes it sold at its outlet stores by placing its brand-name labels on the clothes, even if they were of lesser quality and never sold in its main line retail stores.   Read More