This obviously seems silly, but I think it’s very important for the packaging of a product to not mislead consumers. Have you ever heard of non-functional slack fill? Shit should be illegal, but because it isn’t, you get a bunch of libertarians in every thread about this like “um, it isn’t illegal, so what’s the problem?”
The football in question:
https://www.hersheyland.com/products/reeses-milk-chocolate-peanut-butter-football-1-2-oz.html
Yeah, I could see someone being upset. Imagine planning a Super Bowl party and putting out a platter of egg shaped things instead of little footballs.
She’s not wrong, but… $5 million?
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That was the FTC’s job, but obviously it got neutered by the free market people.
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I could be way off base here, but it seems just as likely to me that this woman is motivated by a frustration with the pervasive false advertising that affects all of us, but that she is being deliberately portrayed as being frivolous and selfish.
And the only way to make a manufacturer feel the sting is to make it big enough.
The McDonald’s coffee story is worth a deep read.
I remember that being reported, and I’m sad to say I was one of the people at the time who assumed she was being frivolous and “sue happy.” The influence these large corporations have on the flow of information is real.
I learned from that, though, which is why I’d really hesitate to pass judgment on the woman in this article. Even the way the title of the article is worded – “Florida woman…” – seems subtly worded to try to make this poor woman look unhinged.
The commercial Big Mac versus the reality Big Mac. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrZFM2nvLXA
You bring to light a reality that many ignore - we’re all just stuck thinking we’re just temporarily inconvenienced (b)(m)illionaires. It’s a chase of the big bucks, because aside from the lottery, a dead rich uncle, or just fucking real everyday work, we all want to be financially secure by any means.
Some shoot for the moon. Some work day-to-day. Some get fucked for real and never see a cent, or don’t get their due. It’s a cosmic fuckery of karma with no rhyme or reason.
By regulatory capture, not free market.
If anything, she is owed the cost of the product and legal fees. Is she alleging emotional damage? Disappoinment is not worth $5 million.
It’s a class action lawsuit, so the $5 million would be split up across everybody that purchased this product (and the lawyers).
Only the lawyers make any real money. See: Sandpiper Crossing, Goodman, Hamlin, Hamlin, McGill, et al.
There’s often large numbers depending on the severity, to discourage others from doing it. It doesn’t need to just be compensation to the person.
$5m is a joke to Hershey’s, in 2023 they made $5b in profit.
It’s to get them to settle for six figures.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Cynthia Kelly filed a federal class-action lawsuit Thursday in the U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Florida, alleging several Reese’s products don’t match their photos as depicted on the wrappers.
For example, Reese’s peanut butter pumpkins are merely pumpkin-shaped hunks of peanut-butter-stuffed chocolate, and the actual product has no Jack O’lantern-style carvings as the wrapper depicts, Kelly alleges.
She says the same is true for the peanut butter footballs and bats, as well as the white chocolate ghosts.
The suit says Kelly bought a bag of peanut butter pumpkins for $4.49 at an Aldi in Hillsborough County, Florida in late October 2023.
“Plaintiff and the members of the Class have been aggrieved by Defendant’s unfair and deceptive practices,” the suit reads.
CBS News Philadelphia has reached out to The Hershey Company for comment and will update if we hear back.
The original article contains 245 words, the summary contains 142 words. Saved 42%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
So if they settle and don’t change the product doesn’t that leave a precedent so anyone can then just sue them and automatically win?
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law suits are the only method that Americans have to tell the government “hey this person is breaking the law” when it comes to corporations. this is quite frankly false advertising. the company should get fined for this. unfortunately we don’t have a government that would ever do that on their own. this is basically citizen action to enforce a law. who gets payed isn’t really the point, it’ll mostly be the lawyers no matter what anyway.
