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I Can't Believe It's Not A Lawsuit

By Bruce Nye

Here's another reason defendants love federal court.

Plaintiff files a putative class action in the Northern District of California (or else it's removed there -- I'm not sure which) against Unilever involving the butter substitute "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter."  She alleges violations of the Consumers Legal Remedies Act (Civil Code § 1750 et seq.), our old friend the Unfair Competition Law (Bus. & Prof. Code §17200 et seq.) and the False Advertising Law (Bus. & Prof. Code  §17500 et seq.). And what's the terrible wrongdoing she's trying to challenge?

Well, it seems that Unilever advertises and labels "ICBINB" as being "nutritious, healthy to consume, and better than butter and similar products" when it contains partially hydrogenated oil, which "is an artificial, man-made substance that has no nutritional value and is known to cause a number of health problems."

But Plaintiff runs into the Twombly and Iqbal buzz saws.  Judge James Ware restates her allegations as a "categorical syllogism" to demonstrate their implausibility:

For the representation "blend of nutritious oils" to be true, all constituent oils must be nutritious.  One of the constituent oils in the product [partially hydrogenated oil' is not nutritious.  Therefore, the product representation is false.

And the Court finds both the major premise (that all constituent oils must be nutritious in order for the blend to be nutritious) and the minor premise (that partially hydrogenated oil is not nutritious) to be "mere conclusions" lacking factual support.  So under the first prong of Iqbal (conclusions are disregarded) the allegations are implausible.

But then, just to finish putting nails in the case's coffin, Judge Ware proceeds with an "even if" analysis, slamming the complaint under the second Iqbal prong (do the non-conclusory statements state a plausible claims?).  And he concludes that even if the allegations are not "mere conclusions," they fail because they commit these fallacies:

• "petitio principii," (begging the question);
• "fallacy of composition" (reasoning from the properties of a part to those of the whole);  and
• "fallacy of division" (reasoning from the properties of the whole to those of the part).

Wow.  That's what a Stanford Law education gets you.  The decision is in Rosen v. Unilever United States, Inc., ___ F. Supp. 2nd ___, 2010 U.S. Dist. Lexis 43797 (May 3, 2010).

Full post as published by CalBizLit on May 24, 2010 (boomark / email).