<\/p>\n
June 13, 2014<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Contact: Ben Klein, National Consumers League,\u00a0\u00a0benk@nclnet.org<\/a>, (202) 835-3323<\/p>\n Washington, DC — The National Consumers League applauds yesterday\u2019s Supreme Court decision supporting the juice maker Pom Wonderful\u2019s lawsuit against Coca Cola.\u00a0 This is a huge victory for consumer protection.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Coca Cola juice product contained .5% of pomegranate and blueberry juice and is the epitome of deceptive advertising,\u201d said the League\u2019s executive director, Sally Greenberg. \u201cCoca Cola tried to argue that the FDA laws preempt a private lawsuit against it. They lost the argument, and we are pleased that the makers of Pom Wonderful pressed their case against Minute Maid juice, which has outrageously labeled their product with pictures of pomegranate and blueberries despite the fact that very little of this juice is in the drink. This is false and deceptive advertising of the worst kind. Moreover, the Supreme Court preserved the Lanham Act\u2019s provision for private lawsuits by competitors, a very important avenue for enforcing false and deceptive claims laws.\u201d<\/p>\n Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the unanimous decision for the court, saying that the Minute Maid juice product contained a \u201cminuscule amount of pomegranate and blueberry juices.\u201d More specifically, he said, it is made up of \u201c99.4 percent apple and grape juices, 0.3 percent pomegranate juice, 0.2 percent blueberry juice and 0.1 percent raspberry juice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe product\u2019s front label,\u201d he added, \u201calso displays a vignette of blueberries, grapes, and raspberries in front of a halved pomegranate and a halved apple.\u201d\u00a0 Lower courts had dismissed Pom\u2019s lawsuit, accepting Coca Cola\u2019s argument that the FDA has exclusive enforcement authority. Instead, the Supreme Court found that FDA law could be harmonized with the Lanham Act, a false advertising statute that permits private lawsuits, and that they can be applied in a complimentary fashion.<\/p>\n Justice Kennedy was animated at the April oral argument on this case, speaking as a consumer who genuinely believed what was on the Minute Maid Juice label.<\/p>\n If \u201cCoca-Cola stands behind this label as being fair to consumers,\u201d Justice Kennedy told the company\u2019s lawyer, \u201cthen I think you have a very difficult case to make. I think it\u2019s relevant for us to ask whether people are cheated in buying this product.\u201d<\/p>\n The lawyer, Kathleen M. Sullivan retorted, \u201cWe don\u2019t think that consumers are quite as unintelligent as Pom must think they are,\u201d adding, \u201cThey know when something is a flavored blend of five juices and the non-predominant juices are just a flavor.\u201d<\/p>\n Justice Kennedy frowned. \u201cDon\u2019t make me feel bad,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause I thought that this was pomegranate juice.\u201d<\/p>\n ###<\/p>\n About the National Consumers League\u00a0<\/strong> June 13, 2014 Contact: Ben Klein, National Consumers League,\u00a0\u00a0benk@nclnet.org, (202) 835-3323 Washington, DC — The National Consumers League applauds yesterday\u2019s Supreme Court decision supporting the juice maker Pom Wonderful\u2019s lawsuit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1348"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10291,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348\/revisions\/10291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America\u2019s pioneer consumer organization. Its mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit\u00a0www.nclnet.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"