While dismissing a proposed class action lawsuit against Starbucks for allegedly cheating customers out of a few precious ounces of cold drinks by adding ice, a federal judged mocked the plaintiffs for their apparent lack of common sense.
The lawsuit claims Starbucks “systematically defrauds its customers” by adding ice to cold drinks, which means there’s less space for the liquid.
To make things clear, the lawsuit even defines the word “beverage” for the judge:
Relying on a dictionary definition of “beverage” as a “drinkable liquid,” the Complaint alleges that “Ice is not a ‘beverage’ by definition.
In his decision on Friday, U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson threw out the lawsuit. He also derided the plaintiffs for not understanding what children understand about basic physics:
If children have figured out that including ice in a cold beverage decreases the amount of liquid they will receive, the Court has no difficulty concluding that a reasonable consumer would not be deceived into thinking that when they order an iced tea, that the drink they receive will include both ice and tea and that for a given size cup, some portion of the drink will be ice rather than whatever liquid beverage the consumer ordered.
[…]
Complaint explicitly state that the drinks consist of the identified ounces of liquid. Instead, as shown in paragraph 27 of the Complaint, Starbucks lists the sizes of its “drinks,” not, as Plaintiff attempts to allege in paragraph 45 of the Complaint, for instance, that Starbucks has made a representation about the size of its “beverages,” and that a reasonable consumer would understand that a beverage must only be a reference to the “drinkable liquid.”
When a reasonable consumer walks into a Starbucks and orders a Grande iced tea, that consumer knows the size of the cup that drink will be served in and that a portion of the drink will consist of ice. Because no reasonable consumer could be confused by this, Plaintiff fails to state viable CLRA, UCL, or FAL claims.
The Wall Street Journal notes Starbucks’ lawyers used a similar argument in July when trying to dismiss the case.
Starbucks spokesman Reggie Borges has also said customers are free to ask their baristas for a new drink if they’re unhappy.
A lawyer for one of the plaintiffs in the case told the Wall Street Journal, “It’s disappointing to see that the judge didn’t recognize the viability of the claims and the merits of the case.”
Starbucks reportedly faces a similar lawsuit in Illinois for allegedly underfilling iced drinks.