Litigation

Wha' Happened?

By Bruce Nye

Week before last, the Recorder (San Francisco's ALM affiliate) had a small article buried in the back about a Seattle firm suing the owner of Applebee's for misstating the nutritional content of the food on its Weight Watcher's menu.  So I went over to ALM's Law.com, and found this story:

Nationwide restaurant chains Applebee's, Chili's Grill & Bar, On the Border Mexican Grill & Cantina, and Romano's Macaroni Grill face two new class action lawsuits over allegedly printing false nutrition information on their menus.

The named plaintiff for both suits, a Washington resident who sued the restaurants and their parent companies, claimed in the cases that she dined at Applebee's because it offered a Weight Watchers menu with low-calorie and low-fat food items and the other three restaurants because their menus contained "low-fat, health conscious" items.

The post went on to explain that the plaintiff, one Ann Paskett, had filed suit in Federal Court for the Central District of California (that's the distric t in Los Angeles) with theories based on our old friends the Consumer Legal Remedies Act and the Unfair Competition Law.  Intrigued, I went over to the web site for the plaintiff law firm, Breskin, Johnson, Townsend, PLLC where I found another link to the ALM story. And on the site and elsewhere in the blogosphere, I found this press release, clearly the basis for the story, including the following choice quotes from Ms. Paskett, the the clearly victimized plaintiff and her lawyer:

When asked about the lawsuit, Paskett responded "It's not fair for Applebee's to sell consumers dishes with inaccurate and unreliable nutritional information. Applebee's is capitalizing on consumers' desire to eat healthy, but not taking the steps necessary to provide consumers with reliably healthy food."

and

Paskett's attorney, David Breskin, stated "Consumers want and deserve truthful information in making choices about the food they eat. We hope to bring redress to those customers who were deceived in seeking healthier dining options, and to ensure that restaurants offer truthful information about the food that they serve." 

At this point, I was even more intrigued, so off I went to PACER to see what was happening in the case.  There, I found this Complaint, filed June 3, 2008.  And I found this dismissal of the case, filed three days later.  Curiously, I didn't find anything on the Breskin web site indicating the suit had been dismissed.  Then I went and took the weekend off.

This morning, back to the Breskin web site.  The press release is gone.  The Paskett Complaint in the Central District is gone from the site (although her Complaint in Federal Court in Texas against Brinker International, which owns  Chili's, Romano's Macaroni  and On the Border is still there -- apparently Ms. Paskett likes to sample the Weight Watcher's menus all around the country).

But wait!  Here's a new Complaint, this one filed by one Maria Jones in Alameda Superior state court, also against DineEquity, the owner of Applebee's, and otherwise identical to Ms. Paskett's complaint.  What in the world is going on here?  Might someone be forum shopping?  Might we not have liked our Federal Court judge assignment?  Anybody have any ideas?

Full post as published by CalBizLit on June 16, 2008 (boomark / email).