Wallenstein v. Mondelez International, Inc.

Background

David Wallenstein and Montgomery Summa challenged the packaging for Wheat Thins crackers. Wallenstein asserted two California-law claims for a proposed class of California consumers. Summa asserted three New York-law claims for a proposed class of New York consumers. The defendants, referred to in the opinion as Nabisco and the other defendants, moved to dismiss.

The defendants argued that California lacked personal jurisdiction over Summa’s New York claims. They also argued that neither plaintiff adequately alleged that the packaging was misleading. The opinion states that the court’s treatment of the motion was based on the complaint’s separate California and New York claims, rather than an actual multistate claim.

Personal jurisdiction over the New York claims

The court granted the motion to dismiss Summa’s New York claims for lack of personal jurisdiction. It held that a named plaintiff in a proposed class action must establish personal jurisdiction for that plaintiff’s own claims. Because Summa asserted claims under New York law and there was no argument establishing personal jurisdiction over those claims in California, the court concluded that California could not adjudicate them.

The court reaffirmed its view that the Supreme Court’s decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb does not currently require personal-jurisdiction analysis for the claims of absent class members. But that conclusion did not eliminate the requirement that Summa establish jurisdiction for his own claims. The court also rejected Summa’s argument that it could exercise “pendent party personal jurisdiction,” meaning jurisdiction over an additional party’s claims based on jurisdiction over another plaintiff’s related claims. The dismissal of Summa’s claims was without prejudice to asserting them in New York or another location where jurisdiction and venue could be established.

California packaging claims

The court denied the motion to dismiss Wallenstein’s California claims. The defendants argued that “100% Whole Grain” referred only to the wheat in “Wheat Thins,” not to the product as a whole. The court rejected that reading, reasoning that “Wheat Thins” is the product’s name and that the packaging’s typography and colors make “100% Whole Grain” appear to modify the entire product name.

The court concluded that reasonable consumers could read the packaging to mean that the product contained no non-whole-grain ingredients. It also rejected the argument that the ingredients list, which identified cornstarch among the top ingredients, necessarily corrected the alleged impression. The court said that requiring consumers to know the distinctions among whole, refined, and enriched grains would impose a standard more demanding than the reasonable-consumer standard.

Other matters and disposition

The court declined the defendants’ request to decide class-certification issues prematurely under Rule 12(f). The opinion also describes the statute-of-limitations argument as a “nonstarter” and states that Wallenstein’s allegation that he purchased Wheat Thins “over the past several years” adequately suggested that he purchased them within the relevant period. The provided opinion text ends with an incomplete sentence in this discussion.

The motion to dismiss was therefore granted in part and denied in part: Summa’s New York claims were dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction, without prejudice, while the motion to dismiss Wallenstein’s California claims was denied.