SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) – The class action lawsuit against Subway Restaurants over what exactly is in the tuna has initially failed for not being specific enough.
California federal judge Jon Tigar granted Subway’s motion to dismiss on Oct. 7, but gave plaintiffs the chance to amend their complaint if they wish to.
The lawsuit claimed tuna at Subways is actually some form of mystery meat – “a mixture of various concoctions that do not constitute tuna, yet have been blended together by (Subway) to imitate the appearance of tuna.
But Tigar ruled plaintiffs lawyers led by Mark Lanier and his colleagues at The Lanier Law Firm of Texas failed to plead their fraud claims with particularity.
“Plaintiffs’ complaint states in broad terms that they relied on misrepresentations found on Subway’s menus and website between Jan. 21, 2017 and the present,” Tigar wrote.
“To meet the heightened pleading standards, Plaintiffs still need to describe the specific statements they saw and relied upon, when they saw the statements, and where the statements appeared.”
Tigar rejected arguments that the plaintiffs didn’t need to include that specific information because the alleged fraudulent conduct was repeated frequently over a lengthy period of time.
“Although Plaintiffs allege that they purchased Subway sandwiches ‘(i)n reliance on Defendants’ misleading marketing and deceptive advertising practices,’ they do not say that they actually read or heard any such advertising or packaging.”
The plaintiffs say Subway’s “100% tuna” label is misleading because the tuna partially or wholly lacks the valuable constituents of tuna. Subway has advertised its tuna is made of skipjack and yellowfin and does not contain any tuna from less than healthy stocks like albacore and tongol.