ST. LOUIS (Legal Newsline) - H&M has defeated a class action lawsuit that alleged its "Conscious Choice" sustainable clothing line is not made from environmentally friendly materials.
The lawsuit, filed last year in St. Louis federal court, says customers are misled into believing the products are "green" because H&M says they contain at least 50% or more of sustainable materials like organic cotton or recycled polyester."
The clothing line has a higher percentage of synthetics than H&M's main collection, it adds.
"Despite (plaintiff Abraham) Lizama's repeated use of the phrase "environmentally friendly" in the complaint, H&M never actually claims that its conscious choice collection items are "environmentally friendly," Judge Rodney Sippel wrote in granting the company's motion to dismiss May 12.
"Although Lizama avoids sanctionable conduct by not placing this phrase in quotes, his repeated use of the phrase directly after other quoted phrases is misleading, to say the least, particularly where he continually urges the Court to deny dismissal of the complaint because H&M falsely represents that its products are environmentally friendly."
Similarly, H&M does not represent that its products are sustainable but that the clothes contain "more sustainable materials."
"No reasonable consumer would understand this representation to mean that the conscious choice clothing line is inherently 'sustainable' or that H&M's clothing is 'environmentally friendly' when neither of those representations were ever made," Sippel wrote.
"Instead, the only reasonable reading of H&M's advertisements is that the conscious choice collection uses materials that are more sustainable than its regular materials."
As to whether the Conscious Choice line has more synthetics than H&M's main line, Sippel wrote that allegation is not presumed true because the plaintiff's report includes recycled polyester in the Conscious Choice line as a synthetic.