CHICAGO (Legal Newsline) - A California woman has filed a lawsuit against Blistex alleging the lip care products manufacturer shortchanges customers.
California resident Alana Hillen filed her complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois last month. In her complaint, she claims the company’s lip ointment is being manufactured in a defective tube, which hinders the customer’s ability to access the product.
“You buy the product, but you can’t use about 25 percent of it because it won’t exit the tube,” one of the attorneys working on the case, Charles Zimmerman, told Legal Newsline.
“As a consumer, if you buy a product that you are charged by the ounce, or you are charged for a tube, or you are charged by a container, it only seems reasonable that you should be able to use the entire amount that you are buying.”
Zimmerman said in the case of Blistex, it was clear that consumers were unable to use the entire product.
“The claim really is simply that the product should be designed in a way that all the product could be utilized -- that you are paying for not just three-quarters of it,” he said.
He said he was aware of other similar lawsuits.
“I know some other lawyers are looking at filing similar cases against Blistex in other parts of the world,” Zimmerman noted.
The complaint was originally filed March 16.
Hillen has requested a trial by jury. She seeks statutory damages, compensatory damages, punitive damages, actual damages, restitution and interest, court costs and any other relief the court will grant.
Zimmerman is working with Robert Pavich of the Pavich Law Group in Chicago, and Michael Laird and Celeb Marker from Zimmerman Reed LLP in Minneapolis and Manhattan Beach, Calif.
Blistex was started as a family business in 1947 and its headquarters are in Oak Brook, Ill.