Class Certification Awarded in False Advertising Case Against Filippo Berio

Summary

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers granted class cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to California con­sumers who filed a false adver­tis­ing case against Salov North America Corp, mak­ers of Filippo Berio olive oil, for mis­lead­ing label­ing between May 2010 and June 2015. The con­sumers, led by plain­tiff Rohini Kumar, claim that the ​“Imported From Italy” state­ment on the label was decep­tive, with the major­ity of the oil actu­ally com­ing from Tunisia, Greece, and Spain.

In a vic­tory for California con­sumers who filed a false adver­tis­ing case against Salov North America Corp, mak­ers of the Filippo Berio brand of olive oil, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers granted class cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to those who bought any brand Filippo Berio olive oil with the excep­tion of their organic olive oil, between May 2010 and June 2015.

The rul­ing was in response to the motion request­ing for Class cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in May 2016.
See Also:Complete Coverage of the Salov North America Class Action Case
The con­sumers, led by plain­tiff Rohini Kumar, claim that the ​“Imported From Italy” state­ment on the front of the label of Filippo Berio brand of olive oil was decep­tive and mis­lead­ing to con­sumers.

In their case, the plain­tiffs claimed that con­sumers buy the Filippo Berio brand of olive oil believ­ing it to be a prod­uct of Italy, when in fact, only a small por­tion of the oil is from Italy.

The major­ity of the oil is actu­ally a mix­ture of olive oils pro­duced in Tunisia, Greece, and Spain that is shipped to Italy. The imported olive oil is blended with a small amount Italian olive oil before being bot­tled in Italy and labeled promi­nently on the front with the state­ment ​“Imported from Italy.”

In its defense, Salov claimed that a state­ment at the back of the olive oil bot­tles near the ​“best by” date, is a dis­claimer that reveals that the olive oil orig­i­nated from dif­fer­ent coun­tries. According to Salov, Kumar could not have missed read­ing the said dis­claimer that was close to the date that she claimed to have read.

In her rul­ing, how­ever, Judge Gonzalez Rogers, said that the court could not dis­re­gard Kumar’s tes­ti­mony that she had not read the dis­claimer, as Salov was sug­gest­ing.
See Also:Articles on Olive Oil Labeling
The judge also addressed Salov’s argu­ments that Kumar was not an ade­quate Class rep­re­sen­ta­tive and ques­tions regard­ing Kumar’s hon­esty and cred­i­bil­ity due to her drunken dri­ving con­vic­tion and per­sonal friend­ship with an attor­ney from the firm rep­re­sent­ing her in this case.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers spec­i­fied that nei­ther the drunken dri­ving charges nor her per­sonal friend­ship with an attor­ney were per­ti­nent to the present case, stat­ing, ​“Kumar’s attor­ney friend is one of the sev­eral attor­neys from mul­ti­ple law firms that is rep­re­sent­ing her in the case.”

In other argu­ments, Salov ques­tioned con­sumer mem­ory regard­ing proof of pur­chase, price paid for the olive oil, and recall if they believed the ​“Imported from Italy” to mean that olive oil was made only from Italian olives. The judge addressed this issue by stat­ing that Class mem­bers could sub­mit proof of pur­chase on a class action Claim Form Affidavit.

California con­sumers fur­ther claim that with the ​“Imported from Italy” state­ment on their label, Salov is vio­lat­ing the busi­ness prac­tice of the 1930 Tariff Act, 19 U.S.C. § 1304(a).

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