Racies v. Quincy Bioscience, LLC

Background

Phillip Racies brought claims under California’s Unfair Competition Law and Consumers Legal Remedies Act, alleging that Quincy Bioscience, LLC made false, misleading, and deceptive statements about Prevagen. The challenged statements included claims that Prevagen “improves memory” and supports “healthy brain function, sharper mind, and clearer thinking.”

In December 2017, the court certified a class consisting of California consumers who purchased certain Prevagen products during the applicable limitations period. At trial, Racies testified that he bought Prevagen because of memory and recall concerns and because of what he believed the product’s packaging said. His receipt showed a purchase described as “Prevagen Brn Cell Protect” for $27.99, and the trial evidence included a product labeled “Brain Cell Protection.” That label did not include the “Improves Memory” statement. Racies could not say whether the bottle he purchased carried the “Improves Memory” label or the “Brain Cell Protection” label.

A jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict. The court declared a mistrial and then considered Quincy’s motion to decertify the class and both parties’ motions for judgment as a matter of law.

Motion to Decertify the Class

The court granted Quincy’s motion to decertify the class. Class decertification removes the case from class-action treatment when the requirements for maintaining a class are no longer met. The court explained that class-certification requirements must be reconsidered in light of the evidence developed at trial, and that Racies retained the burden of showing that those requirements were satisfied.

The court concluded that Racies’s claim was not typical of the class because the trial evidence did not establish that he saw and relied on the statements that formed the basis for class certification. The only product label admitted at trial was the “Brain Cell Protection” label, which made different statements from the “Improves Memory” label. Racies’s testimony about what he remembered seeing was vague, and he acknowledged that he could not honestly say which label appeared on the product he bought.

The court also held that common issues did not predominate. Reliance—showing that a defendant’s statement was an immediate cause of a consumer’s purchase or other injury—was an essential element of both the Unfair Competition Law and Consumers Legal Remedies Act claims. At the class-certification stage, the court had allowed a presumption that class members relied on the challenged statements because it understood those statements to have appeared on the products. After trial, however, Racies’s inability to identify whether he saw those statements meant that reliance could not be shown on a common classwide basis.

The court stated that the class also failed the adequacy requirement, which concerns whether the class representative and counsel can fairly and adequately protect the class’s interests. Its conclusion was that Racies failed to satisfy the typicality, adequacy, and predominance requirements under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23.

Motions for Judgment as a Matter of Law

The court denied Quincy’s motion for judgment as a matter of law on Racies’s individual claim. Judgment as a matter of law is appropriate only when the trial evidence permits only one reasonable conclusion and no reasonable juror could find for the opposing party. Although the court described Racies’s trial evidence as weak, it found that questions remained about what product he bought, the circumstances of the purchase, and what the label said. The court also found that Racies had introduced evidence of his own damages, including the receipt, which was sufficient after the class was decertified.

The court also denied Racies’s motion for judgment as a matter of law. Viewing the evidence in Quincy’s favor, the court found that the evidence did not compel the conclusion that any representation was false or that Prevagen did not work as represented.

Disposition

The court granted Defendant’s motion to decertify the class, denied Defendant’s motion for judgment as a matter of law, and denied Plaintiff’s motion for judgment as a matter of law. It set a telephone case-management conference for May 12, 2020, to discuss a plan for finally resolving the case.