SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) - The manufacturer of Doggie Dailies Hip & Joint Supplement for Dogs has asked a judge to throw out a proposed class action, saying the plaintiff based her false-advertising claim on irrelevant scientific studies and her own subjective conclusion that the supplements don’t work.
Compana Pet Brands, in a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, also says plaintiff Linda Goshert lacks standing to sue and amended her complaint to add details she apparently remembered after filing the first version of the case.
Goshert claims she has been buying Doggie Dailies for years on Amazon.com but they failed to cure her dog’s arthritic hips. She cites four scientific studies to bolster her claim the products don’t cure joint disease.
Compana said the studies are irrelevant because they concern actual joint disease and Doggie Dailies only “promotes healthy joints.” Two of the four studies, moreover, say it is possible the glucosamine and chondroitin in Doggie Dailies could help canine joints, the company said. Goshert also can’t represent consumers who purchased two other Compana vitamin products because she never actually bought them, the company said.
Goshert is represented by Sean Litteral of Bursor Fisher, who has filed at least 20 similar lawsuits this year. In another, he accuses Mars Inc. of putting unsafe levels of titanium dioxide in Skittles. Fisher Bursor’s business model appears to have drawn competition: in a filing in that case, the law firm accuses rivals Foote, Mielke, Chavez & O’Neil of Geneva, Ill. of copying its complaint “word for word.”