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Monday, November 18, 2024

Krispy Kreme has defense ready in class action over fruit-filling

Federal Court
Krispy

NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) – Krispy Kreme is ready to fight a class action lawsuit that claims its fruit filling contains artificial flavors.

Rather than deal down the road with whether a “reasonable consumer” would be misled by the claims on Krispy Kreme’s glazed apple pie boxes, the company recently told a federal judge it will be raising several arguments in a coming motion to dismiss.

Krispy Kreme “believes that addressing these issues at the outset by way of a motion to dismiss will be efficient and avoid the need to address other infirmities later, such as class certification,” attorneys for the company wrote to Judge Gregory Woods on July 16.

Michael Williams filed a class action complaint  Dec. 27 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corp., alleging negligent representation, breach of express warranty, implied warranty of merchantability and Magnuson Moss Warranty Act, fraud and unjust enrichment.

Williams alleges that Krispy Kreme's labels on its single-serving Glazed Apple Pies are misleading. He claims the product's front labels state they are "made with real fruit filling and other natural flavors" and use "original glazed flavoring" and do not disclose that the product has artificial flavoring. The product's ingredient list does disclose "natural and artificial flavors."

"Consumers expect that where a product identifies 'original glazed flavoring,' that flavor will be supplied by natural flavors instead of artificial flavors," the suit states. "However, the product is misleading because it does not disclose the glazed flavoring is the result of artificial flavor."

Williams is represented by Spencer Sheehan of Sheehan & Associates PC in Great Neck, New York.

 Krispy Kreme’s lawyers say there are several problems with Sheehan’s lawsuit, starting with its New York lead plaintiff attempting to lead a class of residents of the other 49 states.

They also say the plaintiff misinterprets “made with” to mean “made exclusively with.”

“The labels of the respective products… render Plaintiff’s interpretation of the labels as not containing any artificial flavors objectively unreasonable,” the letter says.

“Defendant believes this can be determined on a motion to dismiss, because it is not plausible to read the label as saying things it does not say.”

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