Class certification in Wesson oil case affirmed
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An “administratively feasible” way to identify class members is not a prerequisite to class certification, says an appellate court, in affirming class certification in a case filed against ConAgra Foods Inc. over its Wesson oil products.
Plaintiffs from 11 states had argued a case filed against ConAgra Foods, a unit of Omaha, Nebraska-based ConAgra Brands Inc., that the “100% natural” label on its Wesson-brand cooking oil products was false or misleading because the oils are made from bioengineered ingredients, according to Tuesday’s ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in Robert Briseno et al v. ConAgra Foods Inc.
The U.S. District Court in Los Angeles had granted plaintiffs class certification in the case. ConAgra argued the class certification should be reversed because plaintiffs had not identified an administratively feasible way to identify class members.
“ConAgra claims that plaintiffs did not propose any way to identify class members and cannot prove that an administratively feasible method exits because consumer do not generally save grocery receipts and are unlikely to remember details about individual purchases of a low-cost product like cooking oil,” said the ruling.
A three-judge appeals court panel unanimously disagreed with ConAgra’s position, stating it agreed with previous rulings on the issue by the 6th, 7th and 8th circuits in Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis respectively.
The language of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 “neither provides nor implies that demonstrating an administratively feasible way to identify class members is a prerequisite to class certification,” said the ruling, in affirming the lower court’s decision.
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