BOSTON (Legal Newsline) – A Keurig customer who alleges the cups are too small to be recycled can continue to pursue class action claims on behalf of Massachusetts residents but not the entire nation.
Judge Indira Talwani made that ruling June 11 in Matthew Downing’s lawsuit against Keurig Green Mountain. Downing and lawyers at Haber & Urmy alleged in a September lawsuit that Keurig’s claims that its cups are recyclable are false because they are so small.
It is uneconomical for recycling centers to sort the cups, the lawsuit claims. They can also be difficult to recycle because they are often crushed or mangled by the user, it adds.
Talwani said the decision to market Keurig pods as recyclable was done at the company’s headquarters in Massachusetts.
“In an internal investigation completed prior to releasing the product, Keurig discovered that even at recycling centers which will accept the pods, only 30% of the pods were successfully recycled,” Talwani wrote.
Downing has adequately alleged that he saw an ad that touted the pods’ recyclability and purchased them, partly because of that claim. Talwani ruled. He has also pled that the pods are not recyclable according to the Federal Trade Commission’s “Green Guides,” she added.
This all adds up to a potential class action the company must now face, though on a much smaller scale than Haber & Urmy tried. The firm proposed two classes – one for Massachusetts purchases and one for all purchases.
“Here… the injury occurred where consumer purchased pods in reliance on advertising that the pods were recyclable, not where the advertising strategy was initiated,” Talwani wrote.
“Using the ‘place of reliance’ factor, entitled to greater respect than a defendant’s principal place of business, and considering the fact that Keurig made its representations on the boxes of its pods (likely the same place that the purchasers relied on the advertisements and certainly the same place that the plaintiff received the representations), the court strikes Downing’s putative nationwide class because plaintiffs who saw Keurig advertisements and acted in reliance on them outside of Massachusetts are not covered by Chapter 93 (the Massachusetts law under which Downing sought relief).”