MIAMI (Legal Newsline) - The lawyers who hoped to sue Kraft Heinz because they claimed its microwave macaroni and cheese takes longer than advertised to prepare failed to prove their client was harmed, a federal judge ruled.
Kraft Heinz previously argued the lawsuit "stretches the bounds of plausibility well past the breaking point." Plaintiff Amanda Ramirez had sued because the package says the macaroni and cheese is ready in 3 1/2 minutes - a timespan that didn't take into account filling the cup with water, mixing in the cheese and waiting for the macaroni to cool.
Consumers wouldn't have paid as much had they known the prep time meant the macaroni and cheese wouldn't be ready in exactly 3 1/2 minutes, lawyers William Wright and Spencer Sheehan alleged.
That price premium didn't establish standing to sue, Miami federal judge Beth Bloom ruled on July 27.
"Plaintiff contends that she did not continue to purchase the product after learning that its label was deceptive," Bloom said. "However, that contention is refuted by the complaint."
The complaint said she purchased the Velveeta mac and cheese between October and November 2022, "among other times."
"(T)he allegations demonstrate that the Plaintiff continued to pay the alleged price premium knowing that the Product was not actually capable of being ready for consumption in three and a half minutes."
Ramirez and her lawyers also failed to show she was unable to consume the product. "In fact," Bloom wrote, "the Complaint does not even include an allegation that Plaintiff ever attempted to cook the product."
Kraft Heinz filed its motion to dismiss April 7, arguing the prep time is de minimis and that it couldn't possibly put an exact time it takes for the macaroni to be completely ready, considering those tasks would take different people different amounts of time to complete.
"Accordingly, Kraft Heinz has no ability to standardize these non-cooking tasks, and reasonable consumers would not expect a food company to even try," the motion says.
The packages don't actually say the macaroni is ready in 3 1/2 minutes from package opening to consumption, Kraft Heinz added.
"(E)ven if 'ready in 3 1/2 minutes' is somehow ambiguous, the preparation directions literally at the consumer's fingertips clearly indicate that the stated time is the cook time only and does not include time estimates for the other steps in the preparation directions," the motion says.
Kraft Heinz is represented by Paige Comparato of King & Spalding in Miami and other lawyers at the firm's office in Los Angeles.
Judges are growing increasingly bothered by Sheehan's chosen field of litigation and one recently required a list of all his cases before allowing him to file an amended complaint over mint Trident gum.