Class Certification Denied In Juice Dispute

Recently, a New Jersey federal district court judge refused to certify a class of consumers claiming an orange juice product was mislabeled as "pasteurized." In re: Tropicana Orange Juice Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation, 2018 WL 497071 (D.N.J. Jan. 22, 2018). According to plaintiffs, Tropicana's "Pure Premium" orange juice contained added natural flavoring in violation of FDA pasteurization standards. The court denied the class certification motion because plaintiffs failed to prove that common issues predominated under Rule 23(b)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Since multiple named plaintiffs testified that they did not even see the word "pasteurized" on the product label, much less rely on it, class certification was put out to pasture.