San Francisco Weekly’s blog is reporting on a lawsuit that caught our attention. Roy Werbel has brought class-action suits against Froot Loops and Cap’n Crunch Crunchberries for false advertising because of the name these brands carry and the fact that their product contains no fruit—at all. “Werbel claims their misleading monikers deceived him—for for years.”Jeff Kravitz is Werbel’s attorney in the cases in San Francisco Federal Court. Thus far, “a Sacramento judge had already rules that no sensible customer would think there’s real berries in Crunchberries [.]” While this is not good for his case, Kravitz does note that two government trademark lawyers, apparently acting independently, also questioned whether the cereals in question contained any fruit.
Kravitz is hopeful as the case moves forward more consumers will come forward claiming, they too, were deceived. Kravitz’s legal theory is laid out by the blog post as claiming, “the companies have been deceptively marketing their products as nourishing and fruit-filled breakfasts to uneducated, lower-income folks (though his client, Werbel, is "educated.").
The San Francisco Weekly blog notes that should this case go forward, there could be potential suits against other cereals—Grape Nuts have no grapes nor nuts, Lucky Charms are not lucky, and Fruity Pebbles do not have fruit either. We shall see.
To read the San Francisco Weekly blog post click here.
Posted: 10/01/09
