OAKLAND, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – Class action lawyers complaining about candy don’t deserve anything but it’s clear they want more than $5 million, Tootsie Roll Industries is arguing.
The company is fighting a lawsuit that says boxes of Junior Mints and Sugar Babies are filled with too much air and not enough product. Attorneys at Clarkson Law Firm in Los Angeles want the case heard in state court.
They argued they are not seeking $5 million, the threshold for federal court jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act, when they motioned for the case to be sent back to Alameda County Superior Court.
On Oct. 26, Tootsie Roll filed its opposition in California federal court.
“To be clear, Tootsie Roll does not believe that Plaintiff or the putative class should recovery any amount as a result of her legally deficient claims,” lawyers for the company wrote. “Tootsie Roll already has litigated three previous cases in federal court alleging nearly identical slack-fill claims, all of which have failed.”
The company went on to show the millions it made in California from selling the specific products alleged to contain too much slack fill. It also claimed that the Clarkson firm has tried to pursue these claims before but abandoned them after the company spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in its defense in Los Angeles federal court.
“Now, with the filing of this lawsuit, Plaintiff’s counsel has started this litigation over from scratch in a bold and blatant case of forum shopping,” the company says.
CAFA gives federal courts jurisdiction over class actions in which more than $5 million is at stake. In removing the case to federal court under that statute, Tootsie Roll valued the claim at $6.2 million – full restitution of the sales of the boxes in question.
Clarkson Law attorneys say if the boxes were half-full, customers should be refunded half of that $6.2 million.