LOS ANGELES (Legal Newsline) – Defendants in a class action that alleges they use chocolate harvested by a slave trade are again looking for victory in Los Angeles federal court.
Mars Wrigley, Starbucks and Quaker Oats filed their latest round of motions to dismiss on Sept. 4 in a lawsuit that has already been rejected once by Judge Cormac Carney.
On July 29, Carney granted previous motions to dismiss but allowed class action lawyers 14 days to attempt to fix their problems with an amended complaint.
They tried but failed, according to the defendants.
“Plaintiff continues to improperly refer to the labor issues that generally plague the cocoa industry and West Africa region, but offers no facts specific as to Starbucks,” the company’s lawyers wrote.
“Unable to explain why the cocoa farm audits conducted through a third party are a ‘sham,’ Plaintiff deleted the allegations and replaced them with a new conclusory statement, ‘these farm audits and verifications are unreliable.’
“Lacking specific information as to Starbucks and asserting that only 20% of cocoa grown in the region is traceable, Plaintiff’s case is based on the possibility that Starbucks might have sourced its cocoa for the Hot Cocoa Mix from forced or child labor.”
Lori Myers’ lawsuit says the companies put labels on their products that would lead customers to believing the chocolate is produced ethically despite a history of child and slave labor and deforestation in the harvesting of cocoa in West Africa.
Judge Carney ruled against all of her arguments and gave her 14 days to amend her complaint. As to allegations regarding Starbucks’ COCOA certification program, he wrote:
“Plaintiff identifies only one specific problem with the COCOA program: it ‘consists solely of mandating verification organizations to audit farms’ and these verification organizations are ‘trained and audited by another global organization, SCS Global Services, and not by Starbucks itself.’
“The Court fails to understand why Starbucks’s use of third parties makes the COCOA program a sham. Plaintiff then falls back on generalized allegations about industry-wide problems and attempts to shift the burden to Starbucks to substantiate the success of the COCOA program.”
The complaint also took issue with the Mars relying on the Rainforest Alliance to help it find cocoa harvested ethically. On Dove dark chocolate bars, Mars puts “We buy cocoa from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms, traceable from the farms into our factory.”
“Mars’ packaging simply does not make any claims about the labor practices of its suppliers or the scope of the Rainforest Alliance program,” Carney wrote.
Myers is represented by Schonbrun Seplow Harris and Hoffman in Los Angeles and Harris Hoffman and Zeldes in San Diego.