A court in the Northern District of California recently dismissed a complaint brought against several beverage companies, including Coca-Cola, on behalf of a putative class of consumers and the Sierra Club. Swartz v. Coca-Cola Co., No. 21-cv-04643-JD, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 209641 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 18, 2022). Asserting claims under California and common law, plaintiffs alleged that the “100% recyclable” representation on single-use plastic bottles supplied by defendants is false and misleading because not all plastic bottles discarded into recycling bins are processed into reusable material. Plaintiffs’ complaint cited to studies showing that recycling facilities in the U.S. lack the capacity to process most of the plastic waste generated, and not all plastic processed turns into material for reuse. Resolving defendants’ motion to dismiss, the court acknowledged that “the question of consumer deception may be a factual matter unsuitable for resolution in a motion to dismiss,” but concluded that plaintiffs here failed to meet “the initial burden of pleading factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged as informed by judicial experience and common sense.”
The court first rejected plaintiffs’ claim that a reasonable consumer would believe the “100% recyclable” labels to mean that all bottles will be recycled in their entirety into new bottles for reuse. According to the court, plaintiffs’ theory...
India accounts for about one-third of the world's child marriages, according to data from the UN's children agency UNICEF, but a video circulating online does not show a girl marrying a man in the ...