SAN DIEGO (Legal Newsline) – Nestle is moving on to its next defense as it fights a class action lawsuit that claims it can’t prove the cocoa it buys wasn’t harvested by children and slaves.
The company filed its motion to dismiss the lawsuit of Renee Walker on July 1, claiming the case is one of many that attempts to use California consumer protection laws to punish companies that buy cocoa from West Africa.
“The Ninth Circuit has squarely rejected the theory that chocolate companies have an obligation to affirmatively disclose details about conditions in West Africa on their product labels,” Nestle’s attorneys wrote.
“Plaintiff’s lawsuit repackages this defunct theory, arguing that the labels of unspecified ‘chocolate products’ affirmatively misrepresented the conditions under which cocoa may have been farmed.
“No reasonable consumer could come to the same conclusion.”
Other companies, like Starbucks and Mars Wrigley, face similar class actions.
The case against Nestle claims Walker bought its products based on labels that stated Nestle “supports farmers for better chocolate” and that the company was working to “help improve the lives of cocoa farmers.”
The company attempted to use a free speech law to fight Walker’s case, but a judge ruled the Anti-SLAPP Law did not apply.
That law is used by defendants who claim the subjects of lawsuits are actually protected free speech.
Nestle pointed to the Nestle Cocoa Plan website, claiming its statements about combating child and slave labor brought the case into the scope of the Anti-SLAPP Law because they concern an issue of public interest.
Nestle included the web address on its packaging. The argument failed, Judge James Lorenz wrote.
“Defendant’s product labels are not about environmental sustainability and labor conditions in general,” Lorenz wrote. “They refer to Defendant’s environmental and labor-related business operations specifically.
“Accordingly, in context, the reference to the website does not negate the purely commercial statements on the product labels.”