Sinatro v. Barilla America, Inc.

Background

Matthew Sinatro and Jessica Prost brought a proposed class action against Barilla America, Inc. They alleged that Barilla falsely, misleadingly, and deceptively marketed certain Barilla-brand pastas by labeling them “ITALY’S #1 BRAND OF PASTA®” and surrounding that statement with the colors of the Italian flag. Plaintiffs alleged that the packaging led reasonable consumers to believe that the products were made in Italy from ingredients sourced in Italy, although the products were manufactured in Barilla plants in Iowa and New York using ingredients sourced from countries other than Italy.

The operative complaint asserted claims under California’s Unfair Competition Law, False Advertising Law, and Consumers Legal Remedies Act, as well as claims for breach of warranty and unjust enrichment or restitution. Plaintiffs sought certification of this class: all California residents who, from June 11, 2018, through the present, purchased the covered products displaying the challenged statement on the front packaging for purposes other than resale. They asked the court to appoint Sinatro and Prost as class representatives and Clarkson Law Firm, P.C., as class counsel.

Plaintiffs also moved to exclude Robin Cantor, Ph.D., Barilla’s class-certification expert, under the federal rules governing expert testimony and the standard for excluding unreliable expert evidence. Cantor offered opinions concerning the meaning and materiality of the challenged statement and criticized plaintiffs’ proposed damages analysis.

Motion to Exclude the Expert

The court explained that, at the class-certification stage, expert evidence need only be sufficiently useful to evaluate whether the requirements for class certification are met. The court concluded that Cantor’s opinions concerned the merits of plaintiffs’ claims or the weight to give plaintiffs’ experts’ opinions, rather than whether the claims could be resolved using common evidence across the class.

Because the court did not rely on Cantor’s opinions in deciding class certification, it denied plaintiffs’ motion to exclude Cantor as moot.

Class-Certification Analysis

The court held that the proposed class was adequately defined. Barilla argued that changes to its packaging made it impossible to determine who had been exposed to the alleged misrepresentation or injured by it. The court rejected that argument, explaining that Ninth Circuit law does not impose a separate requirement that a class be administratively feasible to identify. The court also found that the definition was not overbroad because it was limited to people who purchased products displaying the challenged statement during the relevant period.

The court found the numerosity requirement satisfied, and Barilla did not dispute it. The court also found commonality because whether the challenged statement was likely to deceive a reasonable consumer could be addressed with common evidence. Plaintiffs’ consumer-perception survey found that 57 percent of nearly 600 surveyed respondents understood the statement to mean that the products’ ingredients were sourced solely from Italy. The court treated Barilla’s criticisms of the survey as arguments about the evidence’s weight at trial, not reasons to deny class certification.

For the Consumers Legal Remedies Act and warranty claims, the court found that the materiality of the challenged statement could be shown with common proof. It considered plaintiffs’ testimony, Barilla’s marketing materials and internal study, and the opinions of plaintiffs’ economist concerning consumers’ willingness to pay for products associated with Italy. The court likewise found commonality for the unjust-enrichment claim because the alleged misrepresentation and its effects raised common factual and legal issues.

The court found typicality because Sinatro’s and Prost’s claims arose from the same alleged labeling practices and involved the same theory that consumers were misled into believing the products were made in Italy from Italian ingredients. Barilla argued that the plaintiffs were atypical because they did not read other label information stating that the products were made in the United States and because they had filed other deceptive-labeling cases. The court rejected both arguments.

The court also found adequacy. It found no evidence of a conflict of interest between Sinatro, Prost, and the class members, and it was satisfied that the plaintiffs and their counsel would prosecute the case vigorously and protect the class’s interests.

Under the rule for the type of class action sought, plaintiffs had to show that common issues predominated over individual issues and that a class action was the superior method of resolving the dispute. The court found predominance because the alleged misrepresentation was presented to class members through common packaging, and the questions of deception and materiality could be resolved with common proof.

The court also found that damages could be measured on a class-wide basis. Plaintiffs’ expert proposed a conjoint analysis—a survey-based method for estimating the value consumers place on a product feature—to measure any price premium attributable to the challenged statement. The court found that the proposed model met the requirements for class-based damages at this stage. Barilla’s challenges to the experts’ methods went to the weight of the evidence and could be raised later.

Finally, the court found that a class action was superior because the individual recoveries were not significant compared with the costs of separate lawsuits, class treatment would promote efficiency, and individual cases could create inconsistent standards of conduct for Barilla.

Disposition

The court granted plaintiffs’ motion for class certification and certified the proposed California class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3). It appointed Matthew Sinatro and Jessica Prost as class representatives and Clarkson Law Firm, P.C., as class counsel. It denied as moot plaintiffs’ motion to exclude Dr. Cantor. The court did not decide Barilla’s request to dismiss the nationwide class; instead, it ordered the parties to meet and confer and file a stipulation or joint letter stating their positions within 14 days.