McCormick Black Pepper Class Action Lawsuit

This lawsuit alleges that McCormick’s cut the amount of black pepper in a variety of its containers by 25% but failed to properly notify consumers of this pepper reduction.

McCormick markets and sells branded McCormick® Pure Ground Black Pepper and McCormick® Black Peppercorn Grinder, and supplies store-branded tins of pure ground black pepper.

On or about June 27, 2015, Plaintiff purchased, for personal use, a tin of McCormick® Pure Ground Black Pepper, believing it was substantially filled to capacity. Plaintiff subsequently learned that this product actually contained only approximately 3 ounces net weight of ground black pepper. Plaintiff would not have purchased this product had she known that it was substantially underfilled, or Plaintiff would not have paid what she did for the product.

Black Pepper prices have sky-rocketed since 2014. Apparently, McCormick’s response to the increased prices was to reduce the amount of pepper in many of its standard containers and keep the container the exact same. According tho the complaint, McCormick did modify the new weight disclosure on its containers.

This lawsuit alleges that the company should have done more. The exact same containers have been used for decades and consumers have come to expect a certain amount of pepper in each container. By decreasing the amount of pepper by 25% without sufficient notice arguably violates consumer protection laws.

This case also involves two lesser known statutes. Both federal and California law prohibit certain practices called “slack-filling”, which in a nutshell prohibits using labels to hide the true amount of product. The complaint sites these statutes but does not plead violations of with of them.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer