Apparel company Lululemon is feeling relief after a federal court in the Southern District of Florida dismissed a punitive class action against the company. The case alleged that Lululemon’s “Be Planet” advertising campaign was false and misleading and sought to recover under various consumer protection laws. The court found that plaintiffs did not adequately plead their case and dismissed it for lack of standing. Foley & Lardner discusses the reasons for the dismissal in a recent memo:
“The court dismissed plaintiffs’ claims, which were premised on alleged violations of various states’ consumer protection statutes. First, the court found the plaintiffs failed to adequately plead an injury in fact to support claims for monetary damages. The court highlighted that ‘mere allegations of having paid a price premium are insufficient — a plaintiff must tie the value of the product to any purported misrepresentations.’… The plaintiffs’ complaint failed to allege Lululemon’s products were defective or worthless. Moreover, the plaintiffs failed to allege deceptive or unfair acts as to the products themselves, failing to connect the allegedly problematic ‘Be Planet’ statements to the price premium the plaintiffs alleged that they paid for Lululemon’s products.”
While the Florida case may not be moving forward, Lululemon isn’t necessarily out of the woods. The Canadian government is still investigating the company regarding the same ad campaign at the center of the Florida case, as we wrote about last spring. Greenwashing cases based on consumer protection laws can be tricky to prove and its especially hard to put a hard dollar value on the premiums consumers will pay for more sustainable products. However, companies still suffer reputational harm from the often highly public cases calling their sustainability claims into question and diluting the effectiveness of their marketing.
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Photo credit: JHVEPhoto – stock.adobe.com
