Consumer Fraud Class Action Review – 2025

Dist. LEXIS 16388 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 30, 2024), filed a class action alleging that the defendant’s labeling on ChapStick products stating “100% Natural” were misleading because the products contained synthetic ingredients. Id. at *2-3. The plaintiffs alleged claims pursuant to California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL), False Advertising Law (FAL), Consumers Legal Remedies Act (CLRA), breach of warranty, and for unjust enrichment. The court granted in part and denied in part the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. In this case, the court made several determinations as to the admissibility of expert testimony that was submitted to establish or refute the four requirements of Rule 23 certification. First, the court excluded the testimony of the GlaxoSmithKline’s expert witness, Dr. Steven Dentali, because it failed to establish how a reasonable consumer would understand the product’s labels. Likewise, the court excluded Dr. Anton Toutov’s testimony because it failed to address a consumer’s perspective on product labeling. The court also denied the defendant’s motion to exclude the plaintiffs’ expert, Dr. Michael Dennis, because the objections GlaxoSmithKline lodged against Dr. Dennis’ survey design and reliability did not actually attack the admissibility of his report. In another loss for the defendant, the court admitted Colin B. Weir’s testimony, because it found Weir’s testimony provided relevant economic analysis on damages and price premiums. Despite its favorable rulings on the admissibility of the testimony of the plaintiffs’ experts, the court ultimately found that the plaintiffs did not satisfy their burden on the predominance requirement of Rule 23. Because the court determined the individual damages calculation and individual variations in consumer experience fell short of predominance, it only certified a class of plaintiffs seeking non-monetary relief. The plaintiffs in Sinatro, et al. v. Barilla America, Inc., 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94628 (N.D. Cal. May 28, 2024), were consumers of the defendant’s pasta products. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendant’s labeling of pasta products as “ITALY’S #1 BRAND OF PASTA®,” was false and misled consumers into believing the products were made in Italy with Italian ingredients, when the defendant was based in Illinois. Id. at *2. The plaintiffs argued that consumers perceive Italian products, including pasta, as higher quality, and therefore were willing to pay more for Italian products. Accordingly, they argued, defendant Barilla’s deliberate marketing strategy to exploit this perception violated the Unfair Competition Law (UCL), False Advertising Law (FAL), and Consumers Legal Remedies Act (CLRA). The plaintiffs successfully certified a proposed class of California residents who purchased the Barilla products within the past four years. First, Barilla did not contest that the plaintiffs had met the numerosity requirement of Rule 23. Next, the court determined the plaintiffs met the commonality requirement because issues regarding the likelihood of deception and materiality could be resolved through common proof, and damages could be measured on a class-wide basis by evaluating what consumers paid and what they would have paid absent the alleged misrepresentation. Moreover, the court found that common issues regarding the alleged misleading marketing scheme – including the likelihood of deception and materiality – could be resolved with common proof. The plaintiffs also offered an expert report that provided a damages calculation using conjoint analysis to quantify the market price premium associated with the challenged representation, which, plaintiffs submitted, would form the basis for calculating class-wide damages. The court concluded that a class action was a superior method of adjudication over adjudications of small individual recoveries, particularly when those individual recoveries were viewed relative to litigation costs. Accordingly, to promote judicial economy, efficiency, and consistency in standards applied to defendants’ conduct, the court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. Another group of consumers sued Apple in Orshan, et al. v. Apple Inc ., 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 177689 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 30, 2024), alleging that the technology giant misrepresented the storage capacity of certain of its devices running on its iOS 8 operating system. The plaintiffs purchased 16 GB Apple devices, believing they would receive the full 16 GB of storage for their personal use, unaware that the iOS 8 operating system itself consumed a significant portion of that capacity. The plaintiffs argued that had they known this, they would not have made their purchases, and that this deception by Apple violated the Unfair Competition Law (UCL), the False Advertising Law (FAL), and the Consumer Legal Remedies Act (CLRA). The plaintiffs sought to certify a nationwide upgrade sub-class for those plaintiffs who purchased devices with an iOS 8 operating system pre- installed on it, as well as a California-specific version of a preinstall sub-class. Previously the court had denied the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification, but on a renewed motion, the court granted it in part. As in Moore, et al. v. GlaxoSmithKline , 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16388 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 30, 2024), the court considered expert testimony when deciding class certification. Here, the court declined to exclude portions of the plaintiffs’ damages expert’s report, finding them sufficiently reliable at this stage of the proceedings for admission into the record on class certification. The court noted that the defendant’s arguments primarily targeted the plaintiffs’ expert’s results rather than his methodology itself, and it determined that a full review of certain financial models

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