SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) – A class action plaintiff can’t sue over 26 different types of ChapStick when she only purchased three of them, the products’ maker is arguing.
GlaxoSmithKline filed a motion to dismiss Feb. 26 in San Francisco federal court in its defense against a lawsuit that claims its products aren’t “100% Natural,” as they claim to be.
GSK says Lisa Moore lacks standing to pursue her claims and has also failed to allege enough specific details to justify her fraud allegation. And her claims that the products contain synthetic ingredients are unsupported, the company says.
“She seeks injunctive relief correcting these statements though she no longer claims to be deceived by them and she only intends to purchase them again if they are reformulated to contain only natural ingredients,” says the motion, which was authored by lawyers at Dechert LLP.
“And she says she relied on these representations in general but she provides no details about her purchase experience—indeed, many of those representations never appeared on the products she purchased.
“Plaintiff does not describe any of the particulars that led to her purchase of the products, nor does she proffer an objective or plausible definition of what ‘natural’ means to reasonable consumers and how they are misled by the words on the ChapStick® label.”
Clarkson Law Firm and Moon Law filed suit against GSK Consumer Healthcare Holdings and Pfizer on Dec. 16. They say claims of “100% Natural” and “100% Naturally Sourced Ingredients” are misleading buyers of products like Natural Lip Butter, Natural Lip Balm, Essential Oils Lip Balm and Hydration Moisture + Tint Lip Balm.
The complaint says there are 12 ingredients in the products not considered “natural,” like citric acid and hydrogenated soybean oil.
The motion to dismiss says Moore only purchased the Eucalyptus Mint and Fresh Citrus scents of Chapstick Total Hydration 100% Natural Lip Balm and the Happy mood of the ChapStick Total Hydration Essential Oils Lip Balm line, though the amended complaint lists 23 other products.
She cannot sue over products she never bought, the motion says.
“Plaintiff cannot save her standing to sue by contending that the products and alleged misrepresentations are substantially similar,” the motion says. “As other courts have recognized, the fact that the products were manufactured by the same company and part of the same brand is not enough.”
“Plaintiff only purchased lip balms, yet she brings claims about a variety of products, including lip scrubs and lip butters, that look different, are labeled differently, and serve different functions.”