Moore v. EO PRODUCTS, LLC

Background

Drew Moore sued EO Products, LLC, alleging that labels on 57 personal-care and cosmetic products made representations such as “made with plants,” “plant-based,” and “made with plant extracts.” The products also allegedly used plant images, green backgrounds, and green lettering, while containing synthetic, non-plant-based, animal-based, or highly processed ingredients. Moore alleged that he bought one or more products, including Everyone Spearmint + Lemongrass hand soap, after relying on the labels. He sought to represent a nationwide class and a California subclass.

Moore asserted claims under California’s Unfair Competition Law, False Advertising Law, and Consumer Legal Remedies Act, as well as breach-of-express-warranty and unjust-enrichment claims. EO removed the case to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act and moved to dismiss.

Materials Considered

The court granted EO’s request to consider dictionary definitions of “base” and “based” and the complete label for Everyone Spearmint + Lemongrass hand soap. It concluded that the label was incorporated by reference because the complaint referred to it, the label formed the basis of Moore’s claims, and Moore did not dispute its authenticity.

The court denied EO’s request for judicial notice of publications from United States Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration websites. Although those materials were publicly available, EO offered them to dispute facts alleged in the complaint, and the court could not resolve disputed facts on a motion to dismiss.

Standing for Products Moore Did Not Purchase

EO argued that Moore lacked constitutional and statutory standing to pursue claims involving products he did not buy. The court rejected that argument at this stage. Relying on the Ninth Circuit’s “class certification approach,” the court held that alleged differences between the products Moore purchased and other products were generally relevant to whether a class could be certified, not to Moore’s standing.

The court therefore declined to dismiss Moore’s claims involving products he did not purchase.

Standing to Seek Injunctive Relief

EO argued that Moore lacked standing to seek an injunction because he had not plausibly alleged that he wanted to buy EO’s products in the future. Moore alleged that he continued to see the products for sale, wanted to buy them again if the plant-based representations were true, and could not rely on the truth of those representations.

The court concluded that these allegations plausibly showed a future risk of harm. It denied EO’s motion to dismiss on this ground.

California Consumer-Protection Claims

The court applied the “reasonable consumer” test, which asks whether the alleged representations were likely to mislead an ordinary consumer. It concluded that Moore plausibly alleged that a reasonable consumer could understand the labels and related imagery to mean that the products contained only ingredients from plants or minerals and did not contain ingredients materially altered by chemical processing.

The court found the allegations similar to other product-labeling cases in which claims about natural or plant-based products were allowed to proceed. EO’s competing interpretation of the labels created a factual dispute that could not be resolved on a motion to dismiss. The court therefore denied EO’s motion to dismiss the consumer-protection claims.

Breach of Express Warranty

The court concluded that the product-label statements could potentially support an express-warranty claim. However, Moore did not identify the state law governing that claim. Because the court could not evaluate the claim without knowing which jurisdiction’s law applied, it dismissed the express-warranty claims and granted leave to amend.

The court directed that any amended express-warranty claim identify the governing state law and plead each state-law claim as a separate count if more than one state’s law was asserted.

Unjust Enrichment

The court held that Moore could bring a standalone unjust-enrichment claim under California law and declined to accept EO’s argument that California law categorically barred such a claim. The court also concluded that Moore’s consumer-protection allegations could provide a potential basis for unjust enrichment.

The court nevertheless dismissed the unjust-enrichment claim because Moore did not specify which state’s law governed it. The court granted leave to amend and imposed the same requirements concerning the governing state law and separate counts.

Equitable Relief and Punitive Damages

EO argued that Moore could not seek equitable relief because he had an adequate remedy at law. The court rejected the argument, holding that Moore’s allegation that he lacked an adequate remedy at law was sufficient at the pleading stage. The court denied EO’s motion to dismiss the claims for equitable relief.

The court also denied EO’s request to dismiss the punitive-damages claims. It concluded that Moore had adequately pleaded fraudulent conduct, so dismissal of those claims was not appropriate at that time.

Disposition

The court granted in part and denied in part EO Products, LLC’s motion to dismiss. The motion was granted with leave to amend with respect to Moore’s breach-of-express-warranty and unjust-enrichment claims. In all other respects, the motion was denied. Any amended complaint had to be filed within 21 days and could address only the deficiencies identified by the court.