With California courts facing closure one day a month to save money, and the state's budget deficit estimated at $24 billion, one court in California was forced to use its resources on a lawsuit by a plaintiff who alleged she was misled by a cereal box.
A U.S. District Court judge in California has tossed a lawsuit filed by a woman who said she had purchased "Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries" cereal because she believed the crunchberries contained real fruit. The plaintiff brought her claims under California's Unfair Competition Law and Consumer Legal Remedies Act.
As the Lowering the Bar blog so aptly described the case:
"The plaintiff, Janine Sugawara, alleged that she had only recently learned to her dismay that said 'berries' were in fact simply brightly-colored cereal balls, and that although the product did contain some strawberry fruit concentrate, it was not otherwise redeemed by fruit. She sued, on behalf of herself and all similarly situated consumers who also apparently believed that there are fields somewhere in our land thronged by crunchberry bushes.
Plaintiff did not explain why she could not reasonably have figured this out at any point during the four years she alleged she bought Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries in reliance on defendant's fraud."
Judge Morrison C. England, Jr., in dismissing the case, wrote: "In this case, however, it is simply impossible for Plaintiff to file an amended complaint stating a claim based upon these facts. The survival of the instant claim would require this Court to ignore all concepts of personal responsibility and common sense."
The judge noted that the same plaintiffs firm, Hewell Law Firm in San Diego, had filed a similar claim against the packaging of Froot Loops cereal, which was rejected by another California district court. The Hewell Law Firm is headed by Harold Hewell, identified by the State Bar web site as a graduate of the California Western School of Law in San Diego and admitted to the bar in California in 1994.
Meanwhile, California's judicial branch is facing a $495 million shortfall for fiscal year 2009-10, according to the Daily Journal legal newspaper. On top of that, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced last week additional budget cuts of more than $150 million for the courts.
The Civil Justice Association of California suggests the Legislature enact the following to help state courts deal with budget cuts and matters like the Crunchberry case: Give every judge in the state the option to calendar one case each month for hearing on a set day each month. If the case is not heard on that day, it is dismissed. That set day, explained CJAC President John H. Sullivan, would be the same day as the designated one day-a-month courtroom closures resulting from the budget crisis.