I love this story, reported by the Lowering the Bar blog. A California judge threw out a lawsuit filed by a woman who claimed that she bought Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries for years because she was tricked by deceptive packaging into believing "crunchberries" were real fruit. The judge wrote:
In this case . . . while the challenged packaging contains the word "berries" it does so only in conjunction with the descriptive term "crunch." This Court is not aware of, nor has Plaintiff alleged the existence of, any actual fruit referred to as a "crunchberry." Furthermore, the "Crunchberries" depicted on the [box] are round, crunchy, brightly-colored cereal balls, and the [box] clearly states both that the Product contains "sweetened corn & oat cereal" and that the cereal is "enlarged to show texture." Thus, a reasonable consumer would not be deceived into believing that the Product in the instant case contained a fruit that does not exist. . . . So far as this Court has been made aware, there is no such fruit growing in the wild or occurring naturally in any part of the world.
Does this mean that there's no such thing as Fruit Loops or Grape Nuts?
(Thanks to Melinda Metz for the link)
It’s too bad that nutcases like this woman can’t be fined a minimum of a million dollars for wasting valuable tax payer money.
No wonder the courts are tied up, with idiots
like this woman. The problem is not that they
are stupid(though they are), it’s that they
see a way of getting easy money. There are
nutjob judges out there who have sided with
nutcases like this. McDonald’s, anyone?
I am horrified to wonder if she has ever been introduced to even the word “dingleberry.”