Class Certification Denied In Skinnygirl False-Advertising Case Because Class Representative Didn’t Rely On Label

Keywords: Adequacy, breach of warranty, choice of law, Class Certification, false advertising, promissory estoppel, Rapczinsky v. Skinnygirl Coctails LLC, S.D.N.Y., typicality

Plaintiff Christopher Rapczynski testified that he purchased Skinnygirl Margarita mix "because I love my wife," she "said she liked it," and she "has my three children and works very hard." Those all may be good reasons for a nice Valentine's Day present, but not for bringing a class action. As the Southern District of New York recently held, Rapczynski was an inadequate class representative—not for lack of love—but because he hadn't relied on the allegedly false claim on the product's label about which he was suing. For that and other reasons, the court denied certification of a putative class of Skinnygirl purchasers. See  Rapczinsky v. Skinnygirl Cocktails LLC (pdf), 2013 WL 93636 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 9, 2013).