The American cafeteria chain Starbucks is facing a collective lawsuit in the US because some fruit drinks do not contain the listed ingredients at all, the German "Spiegel" reports.
Manhattan District Judge John Cronan denied the company's request to dismiss the class action. Rationale: People rightly expect drinks to contain the fruit mentioned in the name of fruit drinks.
Starbucks customers complained, among other things, that Starbucks Dragon mango fruit lemonade does not contain mango, but in Pineapple passion fruit lemonade has no passion fruit. Plaintiffs from New York and California claim that the main ingredients of those lemonades are "water, grape juice concentrate and sugar," and that the names deliberately mislead customers and are sold at exorbitant prices. This, they say, is contrary to the Consumer Protection Act in their federal states.
Does it count for taste or content?
Starbucks responded that product names do not describe their content, but taste, and that the menu lists "taste directions." And customers "are not deceived" because Starbucks employees can answer all their questions.
Judge Cronan responded to this creative reasoning by Starbucks on Monday that, unlike the term "vanilla", mango or passion fruit cannot be understood as terms denoting taste, but rather that customers are right to assume that the juices contain the fruit they received name, and that it can cause confusion among them, writes "Spiegel". Especially since other Starbucks products contain the ingredients listed in the name.
The plaintiffs are seeking at least five million dollars in damages.
JH/Spiegel
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