Pleading An Injury In Consumer Class Actions: Is It Enough To Just Say So?

In recent years, businesses have faced an onslaught of consumer class actions challenging sustainability initiatives, environmental commitments, and ethical sourcing language. In our view, these lawsuits frequently rely on dubious injury allegations because they challenge company-wide statements without properly connecting those statements to the value of any specific product purchased by plaintiff. After all, federal courts have limited jurisdiction, requiring a plaintiff to plausibly allege, with facts, an actual injury flowing from defendant's conduct. Some courts are increasingly taking a harder look at pleadings to determine whether a plaintiff can plausibly allege that a company's environmental or ethical visions, goals, or policies actually affect the value of the company's product. In the most recent example, a federal court in Florida concluded that the answer to that question, at least with respect to Lululemon's "Be Planet" campaign, was no.