PORTLAND, Ore. (Legal Newsline) – A lawsuit over jelly sold at Kroger grocery stores has failed, as a federal judge has agreed with a magistrate that reasonable consumers wouldn’t be misled by the name “Just Fruit.”
Lawyers at Piucci Law, Milstein Jackson and Casey Law Firm alleged customers are blindsided to find out the jam contains fruit syrup and other sweeteners and not “just fruit.” But Magistrate Judge John Acosta in September issued recommendations that said reasonable consumers wouldn’t be that naïve.
The ingredients, which are all derived from fruit, are listed on the label. On Feb. 1, District Judge Marco Hernandez in Oregon adopted Acosta’s findings and granted Kroger’s motion to dismiss.
“Because the Court can conclude as a matter of law that members of the public are not likely to be deceived by the product packaging, the Court agrees with Judge Acosta’s recommendation to grant Defendants’ motion to dismiss,” Hernandez wrote.
Kroger filed its motion to dismiss in 2020, arguing plaintiff Sarah Vitort’s interpretation of “Just Fruit” is “subjective, implausible and unreasonable.”
The motion cited a 2015 ruling in a similar case in which the judge wrote “One can hardly walk down the aisles of a supermarket without viewing large pictures depicting vegetable or fruit flavors, when the products themselves are largely made up of a different base ingredient. Every reasonable shopper knows that the devil is in the details.”
The class action said reasonable consumers have paid more for a product they expected to be made solely out of fruit than they would have if they had known the jam contained other ingredients.
“The FDA makes clear fruit syrups contain added sugar which can derive from processed fruits or fruit juices and that such sugars, whether from fruits or other sources, must be listed as an added sugar on a product’s nutrition label,” Acosta wrote.
“Consequently, the added sugars in the fruit syrup found in the Product are just as likely to be from processed fruit as other sugar sources.
“Even assuming Vitort’s assertion that fruit syrup consists mostly of added sugar is true, the added sugar could be fruit based and Vitort does not allege otherwise.”